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The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Wolfsburg - a new breed of Luxury Hotels
The Autostadt is a centre of excellence that emphasizes the design, art, architecture and science of cars
By: Mary Gostelow
The Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Wolfsburg, is quite simply one of the most memorable places I have ever visited.
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Think of a modern art gallery by the side of a football field-sized lake, the whole surrounded by 100 acres of parkland, tall glass-sided buildings and a working factory that happens to produce cars. Also imagine that it appears that set-up money was no object, and you get the picture of Volkswagen's unique Autostadt (car city) project, designed by architect Gunter Henn.
The city of Wolfsburg - under an hour by high-speed ICE train from Berlin - was founded in 1938 as Stadt des KdF-Wagens (city of the KdF Car), but it was fortunately renamed for the adjacent castle, which dates from the 13th century. My train pulled into the station, a mere three minutes' walk, over a pedestrian bridge, to the hotel. An Audi A8 4.2 litre awaited, however, for a seven-minute circuitous drive to the hotel, which included going slowly-slowly, at 15 mph, along a half-mile private drive that goes over 30 different sections of road surface, from earliest Mesopotamia dirt via wood planks, cobbles and macadam-road bumps to today's noise-reduced tarmac. We passed on our right two circular towers, glass-sided and 150 feet tall that each hold up to 400 cars, nose out, ready for delivery.
The crescent-shaped 174-room hotel itself rises four floors from ground up. It is semicircular, cream and grey. Into the lobby and the vision is cream, brown, subdued (interior designer is Andrée Putman). Afternoon tea was in full progress as I looked across the lobby, past a working real-look fire and through an all-glass wall, on the outside of the crescent, across the lake to a 1940s power station with four tall chimneys. The natural minimalism of beige carpets, cream walls and soft Canadian sycamore is relieved by, for instance, a trio of five foot-high pink Medelina plants by the elevators (which are, by the way, big 20-people affairs). At my room, I dropped my things and went straight off with the waiting guide for the tour of Autostadt.
Volkswagen has come up with the ultimate intelligent theme park. Forget Disney, this is fun for all ages, both sexes (yes, little girls too were having a whale of a time on miniature race tracks, play areas, creating their own pizzas at one of the many Mövenpick-managed restaurants). You join the two million visitors a year - hotel guests are admitted free, others pay euro15 for a day pass. The grounds are sculpted, with miniature hills topped by wood chairs. Each Volkswagen brand, say Bentley and Lamborghini, has its own pavilion.
There is a glass-sided five-floor gallery with a collection of priceless cars, including a 1912 Bugatti here, a 1930 Cadillac there, the gold and bejewelled millionth Beatle, 1955 vintage (there is even a 1969 orange VW-Porsche 914, like the one I wore out many years ago). There is an area where you can design your own car, on computer, and try various scientific and safety exercises. I went through a disorientation tunnel, survived the simulator. I watched some of the 600-a day car purchasers coming, number plates under their arm, to pick up their chosen car, which was delivered, by computer, from one of the towers and brought underground to an indoor central collection point. Even I had to pull myself away.
Back at the hotel, my suite, 256, had cream walls, beige carpet, foyer, doors, desk and some picture surrounds are all light-blond Canadian sycamore. The foyer, half-bath and salon occupy 400 sq ft, (the area of a
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standard room on the convex side of the building): the adjacent bedroom, walk-in closet and main bath are the 'extra' area at the building's end. The safe has an electric socket, sensibly on a length of cord, for a laptop to charge. In the salon, a single orchid is on a desk where the B&O plays Earth Blue spiritual music by CG Deuter, specially cut for Autostadt. Lighting generally is subdued, as it is in the bed area (I guess you are supposed to open the curtains to look at the heavily-illuminated twin towers of cars rather than read your bedtime book). Lighting in the bathroom, by contrast, is really bright - and fortunately WiFi works in here. White marble covers the bathroom floor, bath surround and, flanking the tub, the two tub surrounds I have own-label Ritz toiletries, and two thick white robes (small pink or blue robes are provided for kids). Art consists of a muted sunset painting, a black Chinese squidge, a purple on beige squidge and a through-muslin flower head photo. There are in all over 600 works of art in the hotel, chosen by Autostadt's versatile creative director, Dr Maria Schneider. A small booklet in the room, Art in the Hotel, provides a guide.
I went down to the basement gym, with more picture windows, looking right out over the water. Immediately in front is the rare floating pool, 125 feet long, 25 feet wide and inset into the water. It is reached by a wooden pontoon and thanks to the adjacent power station it is heated to 30°, so it steams all day and night (the hotel, by the way, needs no emergency generator). There were neat arrays of fruit, and an enormous number of really-white towels. The sauna in the women's locking area was really hot, as was the adjacent hot tub - I did not check the mixed wet area.
Dinner was in The Grill as the Michelin two-star Aqua is closed Sundays and Mondays. Despite it being a Sunday, the 96-seat Grill was about full - of locals, apparently. Thick country breads came with oil and balsamic poured into your personal white bowl. The single-page menu, wines on back, is easy to read, versatile international-German. Chef Daniel Schmidt's rocket salad with goats' cheese and baby tomatoes was followed by Label Rouge organic-farmed salmon with cauliflower-studded risotto, creamed spinach and champagne-truffle foam. The Evian was poured into a carafe, the Pinot (Rheinhessen Weingut Gutzler 2004 Spätburgunder) was poured from the bottle. I found a pair of Valrhona chocolates on my bed at night turndown and I slept like a log.
In the morning I dodged the thousands of workers arriving at the factory - coming on foot from the rail station, on bikes, in Volkwagens and some other vehicles - to run to the castle, now used for special events. Over breakfast (fabulous buffet, lots of white linens, white Alvo Aalto vases with pink flowers) I was told that the hotel's own outside catering looks after the castle, and the half of the power station used for special events. And then, before I had time to think about ordering the car I had 'designed' on the computer the previous day, I had to rush back to the rail station to return to Berlin.
The Ritz-Carlton, Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, Germany
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