Left to right: Melanie Aukenthaler, Hannes Peer and Philipp Aukenthaler. Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Reception lobby featuring Murano glass light installation by 6:AM and concrete bas-relief by Ursula Huber. Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Aurora has been run by the Aukenthaler family since 1964, although the oldest part of the property dates to 1876. Melanie remembers visiting every day as a child: “We didn’t live here… but every day at lunchtime we came here and ate with everyone. It was full of people, movement, always something happening.” That atmosphere was shaped by their grandmother, who established the hotel and introduced en suite bathrooms to every room, an audacious decision at the time, and later by their mother, who remains “first in the morning, last in the evening”. Both parents still work full-time at Aurora; with Melanie and Philipp now equally involved, it is a bona fide family affair.

The siblings’ first independent contribution came in 2006 with Sketch Club, the cocktail bar and nightclub they ran downstairs until the pandemic. Its mix of international DJs and creative programming laid the groundwork for Aurora’s cultural direction. Their choice of Peer was similarly intuitive. After an inconclusive competition involving five architects, they invited him to visit. “He walked in and said: wow,” they recall. “He didn’t say, let’s remove everything; he said, this is fantastic, we keep this.” Peer remembers the same connection: his approach was “rooted in the elements we found on site”, adding new layers rather than erasing what was already there.

The new entranc of Aurora Hotel featuring a ceramic mural by Officine Saffi. Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

A view from room 309 at Aurora Hotel. © Elisabeth Oberrauch

Photography by Tschinkersten.

The exterior intervention concerns Aurora’s 19th-century building, which adjoins a larger 1960s structure. Its former hipped roof has been replaced by two new storeys containing 18 guestrooms, their angular volume reimagining the traditional roof as a contemporary crown. Designed by feld72, the addition is wrapped in aluminium fins of varying depth and width, appearing alternately opaque and porous as the viewpoint shifts. As Melanie and Philipp put it, “The idea was never to copy the past. Something new that reflects the present, and eventually becomes history itself.”

The same thinking carries into the 18 new guestrooms, which draw on Palm Springs modernism and Alpine rationalism, balancing sculptural low beds, dark walnut, leather and rust-coloured velvet with local stone and filtered mountain light. Pagoda-like ceilings add restrained theatricality, while open bathrooms blur the boundaries between bathing, sleeping and landscape. A second phase, scheduled for completion in 2028, will extend the same treatment to 41 further guestrooms and suites, and add a rooftop pool.

Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Photography by Tschinkersten.

Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Beyond the reception, the lounge takes a more cinematic turn. “Welcome to the Goldstein House, more or less,” Peer jokes, acknowledging the influence of John Lautner’s Sheats–Goldstein Residence. This influence is most boldly channelled in the bespoke sofas and benches that dominate the space, their polygonal volumes forming sharply faceted compositions, softened by tan leather cushions. Timber blinds filter views of the promenade into something resembling a film set, tropical planting adds depth, and a plush carpet adds sensuous purple hues. “I wanted the lounge to feel luxurious, almost cinematic, like a scene from a film,” Peer explains.

The adjoining Listening Bar intensifies the mood through Pompeian red, smoked mirrors, deep-pile carpeting and dark walnut joinery concealing a high-fidelity sound system. Reserved for hotel guests and Aurora members, it hosts DJ sets, live performances and monthly Music & Talk evenings.

Bespoke sofa at Aurora Hotel's new lounge inspired by John Lautner’s Sheats– Goldstein Residence. Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Bespoke sofas at Aurora Hotel's new lounge inspired by John Lautner’s Sheats– Goldstein Residence. Photography by Giulio Ghirardi.

Unlike the lobby and lounge, where almost everything was designed from scratch, the renovation of ARTÈ, Aurora's restaurant, became an act of architectural archaeology. Around 70 to 80 per cent of the glossy timber-strip ceiling is original, carefully restored and patched with brass where sections were missing. The bar counter, room dividers and integrated planters were likewise retained, while new mirrors and lighting draw daylight deeper into what was once a considerably darker interior. Particularly striking are the low partitions in Bianco Lasa, the locally quarried white marble chosen by Melanie and Philipp’s mother for the original 1970s scheme. “You have to remember that using marble in South Tyrol in the ’70s was considered almost too flashy,” Peer says, especially considering that Bianco Lasa is “one of the whitest marbles in the world, whiter even than the Bianco Statuario Michelangelo worked with.”

The restaurant’s defining feature, however, is the stepped, geometric bas-relief unfolding across the rear wall, created in the 1980s by local carpenter Herbert Kinkelin. “I’m not sure what kind of carpenter brings in references to Willy Rizzo and Romeo Rega, but he clearly did,” Peer remarks. “I’m convinced he must have pored over design magazines, because otherwise I don’t know how he arrived at something this good.” Far from treating the work as a relic, Peer used it as a creative compass: “That piece is what gave us the direction for the rest of the building.”

A view from room 304 at Aurora Hotel. © Elisabeth Oberrauch

Photography by Tschinkersten.