Architectural Digest magazine listed Baltimore on its top 23 places to travel in 2023.
Each year the magazine compiles recommendations for cities that offer aesthetically pleasing buildings and spaces, particularly for their architecture and design.
International cities such as Paris, Amsterdam, Cape Town, and Mykonos made the list. Baltimore was one of the three U.S. cities listed, with a focus on some historic spots in the Mt. Vernon neighborhood.
One featured spot is a newly opened boutique hotel, Hotel Ulysses. The hotel is located in a 100-year-old structure that channels the Italian Renaissance era with its stone exterior design.
The nine-story building houses 112 rooms full of classic touches such as canopy beds, handmade quilts, hand-beaded lampshades, and wood panels.
One of the hotel’s most noted design features is the captivating Bloom lounge. The dimly lit, bright colored bar with mirrors on the ceiling and walls offers plush, tufted seating with touches of gold accent throughout.
Hotel Ulysses’ creators are no stranger to Architectural Digest. The brand that developed the Baltimore hotel and several others hotels nationwide were listed among the magazine’s 2020 Top Architects and Designers.
Just minutes from Hotel Ulysses, Architectural Digest also highlighted the Walters Art Museum. The five-building campus consists of a Palazzo-designed building, the architectural style based on a 17th-century palace from Italy.
The museum’s Centre Street building is based on the Brutalist architecture style, characterized by showcasing bare building materials and structural elements like concrete or brick.
Museum officials consider its buildings to be artwork and the largest piece in their art collection.
The magazine also acknowledged John Hopkins University’s George Peabody Library, known as the “cathedral of books and categorized among the most beautiful libraries in the world.”
The space, which was designed by local architect Edmund G. Lind, showcases a huge skylight more than 60 feet above the floor that beams over five tiers of cast-iron balconies.
The illustrated book “Baltimore’s Cast-Iron Buildings and Architectural Ironwork” by authors James D. Dilts and Catharine F. Black examines the library and its contribution to the innovation of cast-iron structures within the city.
With the high ceilings, natural lighting and classic photo backdrop of over 300,000 books, the library has become a popular venue for weddings and other private events.
There 2 neat bars at the Ulysses. The other is more Singapore 1930. Depends on your mood!
Architectural Digest should probably warn potential visitors not to park their car on the street or walk on the sidewalk, lest they be carjacked, mugged or murdered, which is about 1000% more likely in Baltimore in comparison to all the other cities on the AD list. And yes, I speak from experience, as a Baltimore resident and visitor, and visitor to the other cities. Until something really drastic is done about crime in Baltimore, this city will continue its long descent into obliteration. All other social and political issues in Baltimore are almost irrelevant in comparison to the crime issue (and the poverty that engenders it).