The name takes its cue from the tortoises on leashes taken for slow walks by flâneurs in their curious, slow wandering around the city, displaying their sophisticated free spirit. Inside its walls, the hotel offers a trip into the Belle Époque, reinvented by an acclaimed team of architects and designers through a mixture of modern design, historical details and French influences.
The Tortue, located in an elegant historical building from 1888, has six different levels. Its prestigious history lives on in the red brick facade, while the project by David Chipperfield Architects and Stephen Williams has brought existing elements to light, with the restoration of the columns, the arched windows and the very high ceilings, the floor mosaics and the original frescos painted by Adrian Karbowsky in 1910. The designer Kate Hume has decorated the interiors, focusing on wallpapers with geometric motifs and leather coverings in the hall, the rooms and the suites.
The Tortue also opens its doors for the most refined gourmets, thanks to the many bars and restaurants like the French-German Brasserie and the pan-Asian Jin Gui restaurant, where enveloping, even regal atmospheres provide international appeal, generated with the help of the timeless but modern design of seating by Gebrüder Thonet Vienna.
In the brasserie Kate Hume has relied on the iconic image of the GTV collection, with Czech chairs and 811 stools, to produce an intimate and vaguely retro ambience, underscored by the checked motif of the black and white tiles of the floor and the marble counter. The Targa sofas by GamFratesi punctuate the incredible interiors of the Jin Gui restaurant, created by Joyce Wang as an extension of the modernist aesthetic to the visual language of geometry and the Tibetan landscape.
Architects: Stephen Williams and David Chipperfield
Interior designers: Kate Hume, Joyce Wang, Stephen Williams, Einrichtungshaus Bornhold
