Merano’s Aurora hotel eschews mountain tropes for metropolitan design

South Tyrol is known for its tasteful, understated hotels that feature plenty of natural wood and muted colours. There seems to be an agreed-to aesthetic that plays up the surrounding mountain scenery and plays down taking too many design risks. The Aurora on Merano’s Passer Promenade has torn up the memo with a round of refurbishment work that wouldn’t be out of place in London, Los Angeles or Paris.

Owned by the same family for more than 60 years, the Northern Italian hotel was best known for its music nights and the occasional techno party in the basement bar thrown by the owners’ children. Today those grown-up children – siblings Melanie and Philipp Aukenthaler – oversee the day-to-day running of the hotel. But instead of resting on their laurels, they decided to go for a radical rehaul. “It’s important to have something inspiring,” says Melanie. “We needed to have something that reflects our times.”

The siblings set about hiring the talent for the transformation and brought on Milan-based architect and designer Hannes Peer – who is also from South Tyrol – to reimagine the hotel. Peer had a bold design foundation to build upon: the dining room already features local Laas marble and a geometric sculpture from Herbert Kinkelin commissioned by the family. Rather than remove these layers, Peer decided to work with them. He also decided to keep the original wooden ceilings in the common areas and replicate them in the bedrooms. “The family wanted something that didn’t erase the authenticity,” says Peer, whose previous projects include The Manner Hotel in Manhattan and Signor Lievito bakery in Milan. “It’s not just black and grey like other new South Tyrol places.”

Using colour and mirrors, the communal space conveys Peer’s influences from Brazil and California. There’s a tropical modernism feel to the newly redone entrance, which is lined with exotic plants and features 2,000 handmade coloured tiles from Milan’s Officine Saffi. The reception features a beautiful new curved wooden desk inspired by Milan’s Teatro Manzoni, as well as a brutalist sculpture from Peer’s artist mother, Ursula Huber. A chandelier that occupies much of the ceiling is made up of hundreds of pieces of yellow glass, part of Peer’s “Paysage” collaboration with 6:AM Glassworks, whose lights feature throughout the hotel. Indeed, while the aesthetics might be far removed from the prevailing mountain mood, Melani argues that it makes sense. “This was never an ‘Alpine’ hotel,” she says. “Merano isn’t an Alpine village. This is a Mitteleuropäisch city.” 

Elsewhere, the Artè restaurant has been reconceived with a new name and menu. A corner nook has been covered in thick cream carpet (we worry about the first red wine spill) and decked out with high-grade speakers, turning the establishment into Merano’s first listening bar. 

The renovation work extends well beyond the interiors. The hotel used to be two separate buildings at different heights before they were joined together. Thanks to Austria’s Feld72 architecture firm, one building’s roof has been removed and brought up to the same level as its counterpart – adding rooms in the process – with a contemporary external shell covering the façade.  

It’s all part of an ambitious masterplan from The Aurora team that is yet to run its course. So far, only 18 of the hotel’s 59 rooms have been redesigned by Hannes, with a second phase to come. There are plans for a rooftop swimming pool and jazz bar, as well as regular cultural programming designed to bring Merano together. 

What do the old-timers make of all the changes? Philipp remembers a group that recently visited from Köln. “They were very happy,” he says. “They were playing cards in the listening room, with hip-hop playing in the background.”
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