Tall & Urban News

Harbor-Front Hotel Now Open in Sønderborg

Hotel Alsik will complete the waterfront masterplan of Frank Gehry.
Hotel Alsik will complete the waterfront masterplan of Frank Gehry.
18 July 2019 | Sønderborg, Denmark

Henning Larsen’s Hotel Alsik, a masterplan by American architect Frank Gehry, has been completed in the town center of Sønderborg, Denmark. In addition to restaurants, wellness facilities, and event space, the 19-story hotel features some 190 rooms, doubling the overnight capacity in Sønderborg. For a town of approximately 30,000 people that was traditionally characterized by its bucolic cultural heritage, Hotel Alsik is hoping to present a framework of growth, highlighting Denmark as a rising destination.

Hotel Alsik boasts contemporary architecture interpretation, making use of brick, aluminum, and glass to create both a modern and traditional design scheme. The top of the hotel’s 19-story tower is a 360-degree observation deck, open to the general public for views of the surrounding town and countryside. The illuminated deck crowns the hotel with a band of light, evoking the beam of a lighthouse

The hotel completes a waterfront masterplan by Frank Gehry, the American architect behind the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao in Spain and the Louis Vuitton Foundation in Paris. Gehry’s masterplan transforms a former waterfront industrial district into new a new cultural and commercial centerpiece in Sønderborg, introducing venues, restaurants, shops, and residences into the city center. Hotel Alsik is the largest building in the masterplan.

“Hotel Alsik is hoping to present a framework of growth, highlighting Denmark as a rising destination.”

“Our vision was to design a unique piece of architecture that displays Sønderborg as a city in development, to create a beacon for new visitors and growth,” said Louis Becker, Principal and Partner at Henning Larsen. “We wanted this building to rise as an homage to local history—the materials and color palette speak to its architectural context while emerging in a new form. We see Hotel Alsik as a new dimension of growth in Sønderborg, adapting heritage toward new horizons,” he later stated.

Measuring 70 meters tall and containing 24,800 square meters of floor space, the hotel accommodates regional travel and global conferences alike. The hotel also contains four restaurants, a terrace bar, 1,500 square meters of event and conference space, and a 4,500-square-meter spa and wellness facility.

Hotel Alsik officially opened Friday, 28 June 2019. The project was completed in collaboration with Frank Gehry / Gehry Partners LLP, Bitten & Mads Clausen’s Foundation, PFA Pension, and Sønderborg Kommune.

For more on this story, to Henning Larsen.