Commune by the Great Wall

Class: Deluxe

Style: Cutting edge

Rooms: 236

The Commune by the Great Wall is most often described as an architectural museum, a design exhibition, an exercise in cutting-edge modernism — architourists travel from all over the world to walk its polished wood and stone halls and admire the work of two dozen of Asia’s leading architects.

To fully experience the Commune, however, you have to live it. It’s one thing to aesthetically appreciate these (admittedly sublime) structures against the backdrop of the rugged Chinese countryside; it’s another thing altogether to wake up and gaze out at the lush green hills through floor-to-ceiling windows, and live surrounded by stunning avant-garde interiors and classic modern furnishings by the likes of Marc Newson and Karim Rashid, among many others.

The original 11 villas are massive, ranging from four to six bedrooms, and are essentially luxurious experimental mansions. A further developmenthip has brought about 31 new villas — cut from the same experimental cloth as the rest of the Commune, but sized (and budgeted) for individual travelers rather than moguls.

If you’re interested in the absolute height of modern architecture and luxury residential living, by all means, book a villa. For the rest of us, the new additions are the best sampler of China's newest architectural wonder. In both cases, though, you’d do well to remember that this is no ordinary hotel — the main attraction is the architecture and design, and it’s all the hospitality can do to just keep up. This is perhaps not the place to choose for an ordinary business stop in Beijing; this is about the Commune, the Wall, and the experience.