Spend the night at Vienna’s Imperial Riding School, a revitalised hotel with a horsey heritage

Landstrasse, Vienna’s alluringly out-of-the-way third district, has a regal past, most notably defined by the presence of the Belvedere, the sprawling, must-see Baroque complex of museums and gardens. Not far from it is the Imperial Riding School, another cultural marvel.

Imperial Riding School, Vienna

Born as a palace in 1727, the building served as a military equestrian school during Emperor Franz Joseph I’s reign. Later, it became one of the city’s largest movie theatres and also functioned as a garage for postal buses before its life as a hotel. Now, the 342-room property, part of Marriott International’s Autograph Collection, has been revitalised by London and Porto-based interior design studio Goddard Littlefair, in collaboration with local firms BWM Designers & Architects and Lindle+Bukor.

‘Much was discovered during the research phase of Imperial Riding School. Everyone thinks of horses, but that’s not necessarily the whole story,’ explains Goddard Littlefair’s director and co-founder Martin Goddard. ‘We found those things that were a bit hidden and tapped into them, particularly the cinematic element.’

In its previous iteration, the hotel had been attracting a steady stream of conferencegoers and tour groups, but the team were keen to push it in a bolder direction. The formerly compartmentalised ground level, for instance, needed a fresh approach. ‘We wanted to open the whole space up,’ says Goddard. ‘We moved the reception from the front to the back so that everything beyond it could be about the guestrooms.’

Before giving way to those private lairs, the lobby, with its wood flooring that evokes the site’s past as a stable, invites both contemplation and community. Ample seating areas, including one backdropped by an antique Franz Joseph sign salvaged from a staircase, allow guests to savour the monumental original arches and columns juxtaposed with bespoke lighting fixtures, crafted from metal, glass, and horsehair, and the ring-shaped sculpture of Goddard Littlefair’s own design that acts as ‘a visual clue pointing you toward reception’, as Goddard puts it.

Off the lobby are The Farrier bar and Elstar, the restaurant named after an apple variety widely grown in Europe, an homage to the hotel’s orchard roots that's reinforced with soft red and green hues.

While The Farrier is distinguished by swoops of metal, Elstar is graced with decorative Secessionist-style mirrored panels and flows into a gorgeous private garden. The latter's sense of serenity is matched only in the wellness area, complete with pool and tiled seating alcoves.

Guestrooms – reached by corridors covered in carpets that depict hoof marks based on the gallop size and gait of the horse owned by Empress Elisabeth ‘Sisi’ of Austria – abound with subtle equestrian references.

Elegant cocktail cabinets and sofas are balanced with lighting bolstered by bridle-like leather straps and bedside tables reminiscent of stirrups, swathed in a sprayed resin finish for a cracked-leather effect.

Even the bathrooms’ scalloped vanity detail recalls a saddle. ‘We wanted to make sure the rooms felt Viennese,’ says Goddard, ‘layered with shadowing and colour.’

Imperial Riding School is located at Ungargasse 60, 1030 Vienna, Austria, imperialridingschool.com