Midtown Manhattan, New York

The Whitby Hotel

Fifty-sixth Street sits in the middle of Midtown's corporate machinery, but step inside and Kit Kemp's signature color and pattern make that world disappear. Commissioned art crowds every wall, bold fabrics claim every chair — the effect is less hotel-as-decoration and more hotel-as-point-of-view, one that happens to sit two blocks from Central Park and across the street from MoMA.