A new type of hotel has recently sprung up in many countries in the world - it is expressive, personalized and quite unexpected, often colourful and spectacular. These off beat hotels, invented by Dirk Obliers, Aldo Rossi, Jean Nouvel, Philippe Starck, Andrée Putman or Toyo Ito and others play on new and different registers from the traditional establishment. Here pleasure, desire and the wish to see and be seen are used, often ironically, by their creators. This book presents 18 hotels in Europe, Asia and the United States, all far from the beaten tourist paths, exclusive, even elitist, displaying the mark of an eclectic culture, ably practiced by some of the foremost architects and designers of our time.