QVEST Hideaway Hotel

OLD WALLS, MODERN INTERIOR

The magic of the QVEST Hideaway Hotel in Cologne

There are no fluttering flags outside, no giant neon signs, just a discreet name above the entrance: The Qvest. Located on a quiet square named Gereonshof, shaded by plane trees and the site of some important archaeological finds, the building is like a monastic refuge in the centre of Cologne. It resembles a very distinguished private bank – but it’s much more than that. As the door swings quietly open, a soft light falls through the tall Gothic windows and mysteriously refracts in a stone rosette.

“I thought it was important that the hotel should span the continuum between history and modernity,” says Michael Kaune, publisher of QVEST magazine, as he opens the door to the Bar Rossi on the ground floor, which is open both to hotel guests and outsiders. Using contemporary photography and other art, he has created an archive of a different kind: a history of modernism, and twentieth-century furniture design in particular.

Significantly, Marcel Breuer’s D4 folding chair is on display in the neo-Gothic room on the first floor, along with Walter Gropius’ F51 chair, designed for the boardroom at Bauhaus Weimar and variously occupied by artists, writers and businesspeople. The spacious room overlooking Gereonshof can be extended to form a suite when necessary, but Tecta turned it into a lounge, furnished with other modern classics, during the Cologne furniture fair. Kaune has long been a lover of mid-century design, including Tecta’s Bauhaus icons, and shortly after the hotel opened he had the idea of creating a timelessly modern bar with Tecta’s help.

The cooperation has been a success, he says: “If you do something with passion, you get good results.” He tries out one of the new barstools by Joop Couwenberg that he wants for his counter. During the Cologne furniture fair he commissioned individual seat coverings from Tecta, and with its assistance set up the highly regarded Tecta Bar, which earned plaudits from architect Hadi Teherani.

The hotel is a secret place that makes you want to get up early in the morning and discover the world through new eyes, whether your destination be halfway across the world or just around the corner. It gives you a new perspective on a city that seems to grow more exotic and different by the day.