Jaz Hotel Amsterdam

If you suspect that the Jaz Hotel Amsterdam might have a little something to do with music, you aren’t wrong. But far from being a strictly jazz-themed hotel, it’s more properly described as an all-purpose hotel for the modern traveler. Modern meaning young, or simply young at heart — anyone, in short, who appreciates an eclectic combination of rough-edged industrial chic and tasteful modernist-classic design furniture, and who prefers big, bold, street-inspired art to the usual nondescript watercolors.

There is a musical focus, to lend some substance to the name — the rooms are acoustically tuned, and feature audiophile-quality sound systems, a major step up from the usual docking clock radio. In-room yoga supplies, organic bath products, and even runner-centric city maps get the message across that it’s not one for the suits-and-boardrooms type, unless you’re a suits-and-boardrooms type with a fitness habit and a pronounced casual side.

In fact the impression is overwhelmingly one of looking into the future. At around 250 rooms and suites it’s the size of a typical business hotel, it’s just that it’s aimed at today’s businesspeople, for whom work and leisure blend almost imperceptibly together. Which is to say culture isn’t overlooked either. Live music fiends will appreciate the proximity to the Ziggo Dome, the Netherlands’ largest concert hall, while total footballers will be glad to know that Ajax plays their home fixtures just a hundred meters down the road. And in Amsterdam you’re never far from a museum — the city center, by metro, is only ten minutes away.