Schön! alive 3 | soul in the city

Italian sun, excellent cuisine and breathtaking views over the turquoise-green sea of the bay from the spacious suites and expansive gardens: Perched dramatically on the cliffs of the Amalfi Coast, 90 metres above sea level, Borgo Santandrea is one of those rare places where architecture, landscape, and lifestyle exist in perfect harmony.

Overlooking the fishermen’s hamlet of Conca dei Marini, renowned as Jackie Kennedy’s elegant summer retreat in the 1960s, the impressive mid-century hotel is built directly into the coastal cliffs. A steep staircase (or a lift) leads down through the lush terraced gardens, designed by hotel manager and landscape architect Tano Amato himself, to the private beach and the chic Marinella Beach Club.

While its setting alone is breathtaking, it is the hotel’s interiors, and especially its masterful use of tiles, that leave a lasting impression. Here, design does not simply decorate the space — it defines the emotional rhythm of the entire experience. Originally built in the 1960s and recently renewed, Borgo Santandrea feels both timeless and distinctly Italian in spirit, embracing a philosophy of “quiet luxury,” where craftsmanship, texture, and material authenticity are key. The result is an environment that feels elegant yet intimate, curated yet never showy.

The hotel captures the essence of mid-century Mediterranean style, deeply inspired by the legacy of design star Gio Ponti. Throughout the hotel’s 52 rooms and suites, Ponti’s signature geometric patterns appear in bespoke ceramic floor tiles, produced by local artisans in a palette of Amalfi blues and soft neutrals. The ceramic tradition on the Amalfi Coast is one of the oldest and best-known crafts in southern Italy, dating back to ancient times. It combines Mediterranean influences, maritime history and local raw materials – and remains a hallmark of the region to this day.

Tiles are the soul of Borgo Santandrea’s interior identity. Handmade ceramic tiles appear in guest bathrooms, corridors, terraces, and pool areas, each surface treated like a canvas. Rather than using uniform patterns, the designers curated tile compositions that feel artisanal and personal. Some feature classic Amalfi motifs, floral flourishes, geometric borders, or subtle Moorish references, while others are delightfully irregular, with glazes that shift in tone depending on how sunlight hits them throughout the day.

Gio Ponti is not the only designer who influenced the hotel’s aesthetic. Borgo Santandrea boasts an extraordinary selection of pieces by designers including Carlo Mollino, Frederick Kayser, Hans Wegner, and Isamu Noguchi. These works are carefully integrated across the hotel’s public spaces and dining venues, including the clifftop Plumbago Bar – bringing a museum-level design sensibility to a relaxed coastal setting.

No Italian holiday is complete without extraordinary food: Borgo Santandreas culinary offerings include three restaurants. Alici, the hotel’s Michelin Starred fine dining restaurant, offers pasta-anchovy risotto to inventive “Mediterranean Cappuccino” with blue lobster, served on a cliff-side terrace with panoramic Tyrrhenian views. Delicious fresh produce, vibrant Med flavours and eye-pleasing presentation are served at Marinella Restaurant whilst along the beach front, The Beach Club offers a relaxed counterpoint: woodfired pizza – like the Sole di Amalfi crowned with lemon zest and bottarga, alongside fresh seafood platters.

Should guests wish to venture beyond this beautiful setting, the hotel’s new fleet of private boats offers seamless sea transfers to Naples and Salerno. Not to be missed is a boat trip along the Tyrrhenian coast, discovering hidden coves and the centuries-old villages of Amalfi, Atrani and Minori. On the way, a lunch stop at waterside restaurants such as Il Pirata in Praiano, an iconic family-run establishment serving guests for over 60 years, completes this “Amalfi-Glow” experience.

words. Bettina Krause

The Peninsula is turning its hotels into something like a travelling gallery this spring. For Hong Kong Arts Month in March 2026, the group will stage the latest edition of ‘Art in Resonance,’ the commissioning programme that asks artists to make work specifically for hotel spaces (from façades to lobbies) and this year it does so in close creative conversation with the Victoria & Albert Museum.

The programme invites work to be imagined with the building in mind. The result is site-specific art that plays with how guests and the public move through a place: a façade that reads from the street, a ceramic field in the lobby, a carpet that lives underfoot. 

Three commissions lead the Hong Kong presentation. Angel Hui has been asked to transform the hotel’s exterior with a piece intended for everyone on the street to see. Hui, who was recently chosen to represent Hong Kong at the 61st Venice Biennale, brings a contemporary attention to questions of identity and belonging; placing her work on the façade makes the hotel part of the city’s public life.

Inside, Albert Yonathan Setyawan – an Indonesian artist based in Tokyo – will install a contemplative ceramic work in The Lobby. Curated by Dr Louis Copplestone, the V&A’s Curator for South-East Asia, Setyawan’s piece draws on ritual, repetition and sacred space, offering a moment of calm in one of the building’s busiest rooms. Dr Copplestone’s scholarship and long experience with Asian visual culture help shape the commission’s dialogue between material and meaning.

On the first-floor landing by The Verandah, architect-artist Dr William Lim teams up with Tai Ping, the luxury carpet house, on a woven piece that explores materiality and memory. It’s Tai Ping’s second year participating in ‘Art in Resonance’ and the project continues the hotel’s interest in collaborations that blend craft, design and public art.

The programme also keeps its earlier projects in circulation. Lin Fanglu’s ‘She’s Bestowed Love,’ shown at The Peninsula Hong Kong in 2025, is currently on display at the V&A South Kensington as part of ‘Dimensions: Contemporary Chinese Studio Crafts’ through September 2026. A portion of that work is also scheduled to appear at The Peninsula London in February.

“We are proud to continue our partnership with the V&A,” says Benjamin Vuchot, Chief Executive Officer of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels. “This collaboration represents our shared vision to present world-class, immersive and intentional art experiences that transcend borders and resonate with audiences around the world.”

Discover more here.

photography. courtesy of Angel Hui, Jake Chen, Terry Tam
words. Gennaro Costanzo

photography. Courtesy Azienda di Soggiorno e Turismo di Bolzano

Crowned as a UNESCO Creative City of Music since 2023, the sounds of Bolzano are best experienced in the echo of its concert halls, at late night orchestra rehearsals with Stadt Kapelle Bozen, or in the hallways of its world class music schools. The alpine city may be towered by the Dolomites, but at its very core lies a rich culture shaped by the arts. Schön! hopped on a direct flight from London on South Tyrol’s boutique airline, SkyAlps, to explore Bolzano through the musical fabric that makes it one of the most unique destinations in northern Italy.

photography. Tiberio Sorvillo

In Bolzano, the pride they have for their musical heritage is ubiquitous. If you stop by the Parkhotel Laurin for a drink, you’ll find jazz. And don’t be surprised if you hear concerts taking place everywhere from the local prison to retirement homes and kindergartens. The musical pulse of the city is fuelled by infrastructure that provides locals with the best in musical education. “It’s super important to still invest in classical music,” says Professor Philipp von Steinaecker. He was a student himself long before he became the Director of the Mahler Academy which nurtures young talent who want to become orchestra musicians. “The beauty in music is that you you take these pieces that were written maybe 200 years ago but you have to recreate them in the moment. So, it’s not like you press a button or you show a painting, actual people have to redo [it,]” he says.

Music becomes its own lingua franca in Bolzano, transcending the need for translation. “There was always strong interest in music because you can offer symphony orchestra concerts without doing one for the Italians and one for the German [speakers,]” Steinaecker explains. “You can also open to other countries very easily because it’s completely abstract. It’s just a sound but it speaks to you directly or it doesn’t…the first connection is always emotional and that’s always a great starting point.”

photography. Luca Guadagnino

Bolzano poetically embraces its Austrian-Italian roots and it shows in every aspect of the city from its architecture to its symphonies. “Music doesn’t have any borders. We play and stay together, we create community,” says Monica Loss, General Director of the Haydn Foundation, a non-profit that connects the languages and cultures that define Bolzano through music. From contemporary dance to orchestra and opera performances, they organise around 250 events throughout the year. “We want to create bridges,” Loss tells Schön! “Not only between the two provinces, but also at national and international level.”

The arts scene in Bolzano may be rooted in tradition, but its reputation for artistic excellence is also a hub for refreshing talent like Leonie Radine, curator at contemporary art museum, Museion, and Principal Conductor of the Haydn Orchestra Alessandro Bonato, who is a tour de force named as one of Forbes Italia’s Under 30 figures of arts and culture. Each are testament to the power of art in building community and connection across generations.

photography. Luca Guadagnino

photography. Courtesy of Azienda di Soggiorno e Turismo di Bolzano + Tiberio Sorvillo + Luca Guadagnino
words. Shama Nasinde