The Best Places to Stay in City Hall

A white bubble chandelier consumes nearly half the lobby ceiling at this large luxury hotel in the City Hall district, which should tell you something about the scale of ambition here. Twelve restaurants and bars, a full-service spa, a pool, and accommodations that leave little reason to venture out, though the Raffles City mall directly below removes that excuse entirely. Singapore's mix of cultures shows up in the details if you look for them.

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Two heritage buildings in Singapore's Civic District, one neoclassical and one Edwardian, were knitted together into a single 157-room hotel, and the all-white façade designed by Richard Meier stops people on Stamford Road. Inside, the restoration kept the original bones and layered in Italian marble and Travertine columns without tipping into theme-park grandeur. A quieter, more architecturally considered address than the tower hotels nearby.

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Philip Starck designed this hotel, and the interiors make sure you know it, with deliberately odd furniture pieces sitting alongside rotating digital artworks. Rooms look out over Marina Bay, putting Gardens by the Bay and the waterfront within easy walking distance. The neighborhood pulls hard, so it takes some discipline to linger, but the lobby alone gives you a reason to slow down before heading out.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery

A 13-metre living wall anchors the lobby of this Marina Bay hotel, part of a design concept that folds more than 2,400 plants into the building rather than around it. The sunlit atrium and neutral-toned rooms lean into an eco-wellness mood that could feel precious but mostly doesn't. Book The Gnome's Burrow or Treehouse rooms if you have children to impress, complete with bunk beds and wooden slides.

1. The 50 The 50 Discovery