About

About Opulentass

Opulentass is a small independent editorial project. It keeps a written index of hotels that fall into four fairly specific categories — art hotels, capsule hotels, casino hotels and ice hotels — and describes each one in a paragraph of ordinary prose. That is the whole scope of the site.

The reason for the narrow focus is simple. General hotel directories already exist in enormous numbers, and most of them are optimised for transactions rather than for reading. What is harder to find is a plain description of what a particular building is like: whether a capsule hotel's shared bathhouse is the point or an afterthought, whether an art hotel's collection extends past the lobby, what it actually means that a structure is rebuilt out of snow every December.

What we write about

Entries stick to general, durable characteristics — architecture, setting, format, atmosphere and the kind of traveller a property tends to suit. We avoid anything that changes week to week, anything that would need a source to stand up, and anything that reads like marketing copy. Descriptions are written in continuous prose because a table of attributes cannot convey how a building feels to walk into.

What we do not do

We do not sell accommodation, take bookings, hold affiliate relationships with the properties described, publish star ratings, or collect guest reviews. There is no commercial relationship between this site and any hotel listed on it. If an entry interests you, the hotel's own website is the right place to go next.

Corrections

Buildings change, hotels close, and seasonal properties are rebuilt to new designs each year. If something here is out of date or wrong, the contact page explains how to tell us.