25hours Hotel Indre By

It was only a matter of time before the German-born 25hours hotel group turned up in Copenhagen. And it’s a perfect fit for this vibrant city, which is youthful, fun, and livable, but could nevertheless use just a bit more of the irreverence that is the 25hours signature. To that end they’ve placed it not in an outlying hipster neighborhood but right in the historical center of the city — thus its proper name, 25hours Hotel Indre By.

The key to making irreverence work is that it’s motivated by love, and that’s certainly the case here — this place is a celebration of its setting, a 19th-century factory that spent time as a university building on its way to becoming a hotel. The result is a quirky patchwork of architectural elements and an eclectic approach to decoration that plays with 20th-century modernism and the timeless coziness they call “hygge,” along with playful references to historical figures in the arts and sciences.

Possibly more important to the hotel’s youthful audience than its accommodations are its public spaces, which include a multi-purpose all-day bar and café as well as an Israeli restaurant, NENI, and the speakeasy-style Boilerman Bar. Essential experience: borrow one of the hotel’s Schindelhauer Bikes and cycle around the city like a local.