The Orlean Hotel
DUBAI, UAE
Keys - 120 Type - Hotel/Hospitality Location - Dubai, UAE
The Orlean is a hotel where Japanese-influenced design meets French mid century sensibility, and the result is something that feels entirely its own. Its wabi-sabi philosophy is not decorative but structural, built into the materials, the proportions, and the quality of light that moves through every space. Eighty to one hundred and twenty rooms occupy a building that carries its character from the lobby floor to the last detail of the bathroom, never faltering and never overplaying its hand.
The lobby announces the hotel’s intentions clearly. A double-height walnut lattice wall dominates the arrival, its geometric grid drawn directly from shoji screen tradition and inset with textured linen panels that catch and diffuse the ambient light. A deep red marble reception desk sits at its base, grounded and authoritative, while a sculptural alabaster chandelier with black iron arms hovers above the space like a slow exhale. Forest green armchairs and cream ottomans are clustered across the stone floor in a way that feels considered without feeling arranged. It is a lobby that rewards slowing down.
The suite continues that layered warmth into something more intimate. The signature lattice wall follows you here, now serving as headboard and backdrop to a bouclé platform bed that floats on a strip of warm LED underlighting. Olive velvet cushions, a loosely draped woven throw, and a sculpted cognac leather bench at the foot of the bed build a palette that is rich without being heavy. A cream petal chandelier descends from the ceiling as the room’s centrepiece, while brass oval pendants with frosted globe shades flank the bed on either side. Every surface, every fitting, every considered object speaks the same quiet language.
The defining feature of The Orlean suite is the lattice wall itself. What begins in the lobby as a grand architectural statement follows the guest through the entire experience, reappearing in the bedroom, the bathroom, and even the wardrobe corridor, where dark timber cabinetry sits opposite glassfronted wardrobes with integrated lighting. It is not a motif applied for consistency but a structural idea that gives the hotel its identity, connecting every space without repeating itself. The same geometry that nods to centuries of Japanese craft is here rendered in walnut, brass, and warm light, made entirely contemporary and entirely the Orlean’s own.