Opposite there is the full service in the four seasons, here rather zero service. The Hotel Wdrei opens at Maximilianstraße 14, short for “We three”, which means three artists who have left works of art in the 20 rooms. There are Munich motifs such as the Maximilianskirche in the foyer, where the manager Michael Faltbacher is sitting on Wednesday morning and is explaining how a hotel should function without any service or offers.
No breakfast, that much is clear. Bar and restaurant anyway. You only meet employees at the reception. Faltbacher and his three co-owners took over the hotel in the back building and made a virtue out of the necessity of not having a breakfast room. So the idea is that you feel comfortable inside and experience things outside as if you were visiting friends. Of course, many people have this idea.
In this case, it is connected to various cooperation partners who are prepared for Wdrei guests: for breakfast we go to the Italian or Brenner’s across the street, for Bavarian food to Heimwerk, to celebrate with a VIP card to P1, and only to shower and sleep or to charge the battery in the room. Or to stare at the walls, because they were designed by Tanja Leithe, Theodora Spassova and Daniela Viveros Barrera.
Tanja Leithe shows many faces.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
Theodora Spassova stretched mountains and water over two walls.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
The hotel is housed in a rear building at Maximilianstrasse 14.
(Photo: Robert Haas)
From 110 euros per night in a single room, the guest can look at a work of art in peace and quiet, can even touch it and lean on it. For example that of Spassova in room 65, which combines the light and wafting lifestyle of the city in a woman rocking on mountains and water over two walls. Leithe, on the other hand, lets Cubism heads look into the room above a double bed, while the motifs of the Mexican Barrera range from dachshunds to Bladenight.
The pop-up experiment, which was initially planned for two years, extends over three floors, with a room in the middle for drinks that you don’t pay for right away, but instead note down on a trust basis using a tally. A touch of a hostel, then, but in a top-class location where you can certainly throw the bottle cap from the vending machine to Versace, maybe even to the opera and some even to Marienplatz. Faltbacher says that after investing a six-figure sum, they now want to offer what “can’t be bought on the Internet”, namely the direct connection to Munich places and experiences. Beer from the Broy brewers, drinks from the Cortiina bar – the guest should leave the hotel as often and as long as possible. An idea that, according to the hotel and restaurant association, might not do any harm with 57,900 hotel beds in Munich.
At the moment it still smells of paint everywhere, although it could well stay that way, because the artists will continue to work on their walls and works. In addition to the hostel and home feeling, there will probably also be a slight studio feeling.