According to Travel and Leisure magazine's March 2007 DesignAwards issue, the duoMo Hotel in Rimini is the best small hotel in Italy. This innovative and ultra-modern hotel designed by accomplished artist and designer Ron Arad has also been lauded recently by the European Hotel Design Awards as having the best lobby and public area interiors, as well as the top bar and restaurant interiors. Here is what T&L had to say:
Intergalactic shapes in metal, wood, and Corian, "shower pods" in the guest rooms, a front desk carved out of polished steel in the shape of a giant, tilting dough-nut: the duoMo represents the thrill of the future. But it's a vintage version of the future - a dash of space-age optimism for the 21st century, from a designer best known for his sculptural furniture. Arad's 43-room hotel on the Adriatic Coast is a seductive celebration of form over function, and it dazzles.
Here's a link to another T&L article from December 2006 shortly after the hotel re-opened.
Wallpaper, the design focused magazine, also featured the hotel and had this to say:
Its location, size and Schrager-like nightclub-with-rooms concept sets duoMo apart from Rimini's package-tour behemoths. Stretched across the bronze-clad ground floor is NoMi Club & Bar, the hotel's social club and the antithesis of the mega-clubs in nearby Riccione. Local hipsters, hand-picked by club manager Matteo Sormani, sip cocktails alongside guests at the steel-topped bar, which snakes around mirrored pillars. Chef Massimo Costanza serves modern-traditional fare at tables lined by Arad's 'Ripple; chairs. And DJs from New York, Amsterdam and Ibiza dictate the soundtrack.
The hotel entrance is dominated by Arad's 'floating' reception desk (pictured above), produced by Molteni & Co. The futuristic rooms have ethereal Corian bathroom pods and Sky Gold Vision, but lacks mini-bars, as guests are encouraged to mingle in the 'lift-lobbies' on each floor, communal areas where they can surf the net, leaf through coffee-table tomes or fix a cocktail from the honesty bar. There's no spa, gym or pool, but manager Marianna Chiaraluce keeps a fleet of 20 bicycles, five Vespas and a Cinquecento, so guests can explore the medieval villages of Verucchio and Montegridolfo and shop at the designer outlets in Marignano.