Art for hotels and restaurants in Switzerland, from Zürich to Zermatt

Switzerland's best-known hotels are also collections. The Dolder Grand in Zürich shows around 100 works by 90 artists, most of them in public areas open to every guest, and the Alpina Gstaad holds 63 works by 36 artists for its 56 rooms. In the eight art hotels finews.ch profiled in 2024, the choice lay with an owner or an architect: the Schwarzenbach family at the Dolder, the architect Tilla Theus at the Widder, the owner Ruedi Bechtler at Hotel Castell in Zuoz.

Most Swiss hotels are smaller, and many new ones are tiny: the Nînda in Haute-Nendaz opened with 11 rooms, Hotel Schloss Rued with 12. What carries over is the method, not the budget: the largest piece where guests arrive, one idea per floor or room type, and art chosen by the person who chose the timber and the fabrics. The wider picture is in our Switzerland overview.

Where a Swiss hotel's art is on record, the choice sits with the owner or the designer rather than a procurement agent. When a designer leads, it is often a foreign studio: Tristan Auer of Paris at the Mandarin Oriental Savoy in Zürich, Stylt Trampoli of Gothenburg at The Home Hotel, Checa Woid Interiors of Munich at the Renaissance Zurich Tower. Zürich practices such as Iria Degen Interiors work for hoteliers as well as private clients. In a family-owned house the owner often decides: at the Schweizerhof in Lucerne, the owning family and the director wrote the story behind each of its 101 rooms.

So the brief comes from whoever holds the palette. We paint to a studio's drawings or an owner's photographs, send the stage photographs straight to the person who approves, and label every canvas by room or position with a packing list, so a studio abroad and a site team in Verbier work from one sheet. More on art for boutique and independent hotels.

The reception wall is where Switzerland's art hotels put their largest work. The Alpina Gstaad hangs a Bosco Sodi diptych behind its desk, and a 2014 guide to the Dolder Grand described Andy Warhol's Big Retrospective Painting greeting guests behind the front desk. Guests read that wall from across the hall, so a canvas that looks generous in a showroom often looks small here.

Size it from the wall: take the width behind the desk, leave clear space at the sides and above the counter, and fill roughly two-thirds of what remains. Beyond the width one canvas comfortably spans, a diptych or triptych is easier to carry in and hang. Halls divided by arches and columns, like the Victoria-Jungfrau's in Interlaken, often suit a pair, one either side of the axis. Send us the wall with its width and ceiling height and we suggest the size and format; works to browse are under lobby and reception art.

Alpine hotels are built from the materials around them. AW² finished Six Senses Crans-Montana in quartzite, larch, oak, slate, antique bronze, leather and wool, with rooms lined in rough timber and stone-coloured render and full-width windows that frame the slopes. The Bürgenstock's Palace Hotel mixes natural oak, worn leather and the hotel's restored memorabilia; Badrutt's Palace in St. Moritz, built in the 1890s, keeps filigree wood walls and coffered wooden ceilings.

Against so much timber a painting needs texture or contrast to hold the wall: palette-knife relief, mineral tones that answer the stone, or a strong composition of dark and light. Mountains work when they are painted as light and weather rather than as a postcard. In the guest rooms, let the window be the picture and hang a quieter canvas over the headboard or facing the bed. Six Senses lists local artwork among its room finishes: Alpine guests like a thread back to the place. Subjects and palettes are on our Swiss taste page.

Restaurants are spending more carefully than hotels: GastroSuisse and KOF figures show restaurant revenue down 6.9% year on year in the third quarter of 2025, while hotel revenue rose 4.9%. So put the art where guests look and take photographs: the long wall above the banquettes, the wall facing the door, the back of the bar. A restaurant like Zürich's Bergstube, with four dining rooms for up to 150 guests, needs one strong piece per room, not a frame on every pillar.

The register follows the room. The Mandarin Oriental Savoy, finished in walnut, brass and enamelled lava stone, has an Art Deco-inspired brasserie, and the hotel says works by the German artist Angela Glajcar hang there. In a mountain restaurant of timber and stone, warm earth tones and texture suit; in a city bar, darker, high-contrast work holds up in low evening light. See restaurant and bar art and art for restaurant groups and bars.

Many Swiss hotels have more history than any catalogue: the Schweizerhof in Bern has received guests since 1859, the Royal Savoy in Lausanne opened in 1909, and Badrutt's Palace was built between 1892 and 1896. A painting from your own material makes that story visible: the hotel on an old postcard, the lake from the terrace at dusk, the first owner, the family crest or today's logo, painted by hand at the size of the wall.

Send the image on WhatsApp with the wall size; we tell you how it will translate to canvas and suggest the size and finish. You need to own the image or have permission to use it: an old poster or a photograph by a known artist may still be in copyright, and then the rights holder's permission comes first. If the design should stay yours alone, ask for exclusivity before we start. More on paintings from your own image.

Much Swiss hotel work is refurbishment, done inside one closure: of 59 upper-segment hotel projects counted in December 2023, 22 were refurbishments, and the Renaissance Zurich Tower redid 300 rooms and corridors between October 2024 and mid-March 2025. Choose the art once fabrics and finishes are approved, not after handover. Painting takes about 10 days, then 5–7 days by DHL, FedEx or UPS express; larger orders can go by air or sea freight, with the shipping cost confirmed before dispatch.

The terms will feel familiar: the published terms of Swiss interior firms ask for written order confirmation and deposits of 30 to 50%. With us it is half upfront against a proforma invoice and half once you approve the photograph of the finished piece. Sizes are in our Swiss size guide.

Each canvas can travel stretched and ready to hang, framed, or rolled; a rolled canvas, the lightest and most economical way to send a large painting, arrives without stretcher bars, and any local framer can stretch it for you.