Hotel Aurora – Merano, South Tyrol, Italy
Four generations of family history meet 1970s glamour, Alpine modernism and a new cultural life on Merano’s Passer Promenade.
Why DNA Hotels Loves It
● A rare renovation that builds on six decades of family design history rather than erasing it, preserving original 1970s interiors alongside bold new interventions.
● Hannes Peer Architecture and feld72 bring together Palm Springs modernism, South Tyrolean craftsmanship, Brazilian exuberance and Merano’s surprisingly subtropical character.
● The new Listening Bar, contemporary art programme and cultural events turn Aurora into something more interesting than a beautifully redesigned hotel: a meeting place for Merano itself.
A Hotel That Refused to Start Again
There is something unusual about Aurora‘s transformation. When siblings Melanie and Philipp Aukenthaler, the third generation of their family to run the hotel, began planning its future, they spent years looking for architects. The problem wasn’t a shortage of ideas. It was that almost everyone wanted to remove what was already there. Then South Tyrolean-born, Milan-based architect Hannes Peer walked through the hotel. His response was essentially the opposite: keep it. That decision became the foundation for one of Merano’s most interesting hotel renovations. Rather than replacing decades of accumulated architecture and interiors with a fashionable new identity, Aurora treats them as layers in an evolving family story.
Four Generations on the Passer
Hospitality on this site stretches back to 1876, long before the Aukenthaler family became involved. The family acquired the property in the early 20th century, while the hotel took much of its modern form under the grandparents’ generation in the 1960s. That history matters. Aurora occupies an extraordinary position on the tree-lined Passer Promenade, facing the river and Merano’s thermal baths, with the historic centre immediately behind it. Next door stands the Jugendstil Teatro Puccini and a 1960s complex by South Tyrolean modernist architect Armando Ronca. Nineteenth-century spa architecture, post-war modernism and contemporary Merano effectively meet outside the front door.
The Seventies Were Already Here
Peer didn’t need to invent Aurora’s retro soul. Much of it had been created decades earlier by the Aukenthaler family together with South Tyrolean craftsman Herbert Kinkelin. The restaurant, ARTÈ, became an exercise in architectural archaeology. Its glossy timber-strip ceiling was restored rather than replaced. Original brass details, integrated planters, room dividers and Kinkelin’s extraordinary geometric bas-relief remain. Even the white Lasa marble has a family history. Chosen decades ago because the family admired it elsewhere, they eventually discovered that the apparently exotic stone came from South Tyrol itself. Peer took these existing elements as his starting point and pushed them somewhere new.
Palm Springs Meets the Alps
Step into the redesigned lounge and Merano suddenly feels a long way from conventional Alpine hospitality. Peer openly references John Lautner’s Sheats-Goldstein Residence in Los Angeles. Low polygonal sofas, travertine, leather, timber blinds, mirrors and a central fireplace create something cinematic rather than rustic. Then come the palms and dense planting. It sounds almost perverse for South Tyrol until you remember that Merano really does have a subtropical side. Palms, Mediterranean vegetation and Alpine peaks have coexisted here for generations. Aurora takes that contradiction and runs with it: California, Brazil and 1970s Italy filtered through South Tyrol.
An Entrance Made in Merano
The new arrival sequence turns local craftsmanship into part of the architecture. More than 2,000 handmade ceramic tiles in over 30 tonalities, conceived by Peer and produced with Officine Saffi Lab, create the entrance artwork. Locally sourced stones form the bespoke terrazzo underfoot, while a sculptural Murano-glass installation catches the changing Alpine light. A curved mahogany-toned reception desk provides polished contrast to Horizon, a monumental concrete bas-relief by South Tyrolean artist Ursula Huber. Many of the craftsmen involved came from the region, giving Aurora something increasingly difficult to achieve in hotel design: interiors where individual elements haven’t simply arrived from a catalogue but have actually been made for the building.
Music Never Left the Building
The Listening Bar may sound perfectly aligned with today’s hotel-design zeitgeist, but at Aurora it isn’t an imported concept. In 2006, Melanie and Philipp opened Sketch Club inside the hotel, bringing DJs, cocktails and nightlife to a Merano that wasn’t necessarily ready for it. It lasted for around thirteen years before the pandemic brought that chapter to an end. The Listening Bar is its grown-up successor. Pompeian red walls, smoked mirrors, deep carpeting, lacquer, brass and dark walnut create a seductive cocoon around a concealed high-fidelity sound system. DJ sets, performances and listening sessions continue Aurora’s relationship with music, but the emphasis has shifted from late-night clubbing towards listening and gathering. This isn’t a hotel that added a fashionable listening bar. The hotel had a club before listening bars became fashionable.
The Iconic Rooms
Above the historic building, feld72 Architects have replaced the former roof with two contemporary levels containing 18 new rooms. Rather than imitate historical architecture, the addition deliberately announces itself as something belonging to the present. A lightweight timber structure made the vertical expansion possible without taking additional land, while a veil of anodised aluminium fins changes from opaque to transparent as you move around the building. Inside, Hannes Peer’s Iconic Rooms continue the dialogue between California and the Alps. Low sculptural beds, dark walnut, leather, rust-toned velvet and generous carpets are paired with local stone and open bathroom compositions. Pagoda-like ceilings add a little theatre, while balconies frame either the Passer and mountains or Teatro Puccini and the city. Even the television disappears behind an artwork. For each of the 18 rooms, artist Elisabeth Oberrauch, the owners’ aunt, painted an individual watercolour of its particular view. A reproduction waits on the guest’s pillow — a tiny detail that says a great deal about the intensely personal nature of this hotel.
A Hotel as Cultural Structure
Aurora’s ambitions stretch beyond architecture. Its Carte Blanche contemporary-art programme invites artists to use the hotel itself as exhibition space. Instead of conventional gallery openings, the family prefers dinners and intimate gatherings where artists, hotel guests and people from Merano actually meet. That idea — hotel as social space rather than sealed hospitality product — runs throughout Aurora. The lobby connects promenade and city. ARTÈ retains the family’s earlier interiors. The Listening Bar continues the siblings’ musical history. Art appears throughout the building. Locals remain part of its audience. It explains what Melanie and Philipp mean when they describe Aurora as a living cultural structure.
Still a Work in Progress
Interestingly, the transformation isn’t finished. For now, Aurora contains two generations of guestrooms: the 18 new Iconic Rooms and 41 existing rooms still awaiting their transformation. A second phase is planned for completion in 2028, including their redesign and a rooftop with an infinity pool and bar. Rather than hiding that transition, Aurora embraces it. And perhaps that’s entirely appropriate for a hotel whose history has always been about one generation adding something to the work of the previous one. Aurora’s greatest achievement isn’t making an old family hotel look new. It’s proving that a hotel can keep changing without losing the people, objects and ideas that made it interesting in the first place.
