Hotel rating: Star Rating 5
Chain: Leading Hotels of the World
Number of floors: 7
Number of rooms: 145
Year opened: 2002

The Gran Hotel Domine Bilbao, facing the Guggenheim Museum, is the Silken Hotels' first five-star and the chain's pride. The hotel expresses a contemporary concept that avoids ostentation and promotes fun. The project is infected by its neighbour, the Guggenheim's activity, and offers a space that contains a selection of furniture that represents the most emblematic design from the 20th century. Its singularity consists in the application of a concept of integral design, of great, formal coherence, carried out by Javier Mariscal and Fernando Salas with their respective teams. GHBD isn't only a hotel to stay at, but a colourist microcosm that opens its door to whoever wishes to get close to it and have a coffee, a drink or eat in its restaurant. The reading corner: "Txokotranquilocorner" An area where the furnishings follow the general tendency of organic and voluptuous forms that are so well expressed by the pieces by Alvar Aalto, Charles and Ray Earnes, Carlo Molino, Ghery, Noguchi, Jacobsen, Bertoia, Castiglioni, Carles Riart, Ron Arad and Patricia Urquiola that we have chosen for this Tranquilo Txoko Corner. The sinuous wall, made of beech wood, is homage to the architect Alvar Aalto and provides the corner with special warmth. Within the Domine, this is the space that pays most tribute to 20th century design. Far from giving off an impression of being an exhibition of designer objects, it integrates them in an environment that expresses the best that can be offered by designer furniture: tastefulness, comfort, beauty as well as formal and technical solutions. And above all, a desire to look at them and make use of them. This is a relaxing corner, the guest's most private corner, to enjoy a while of reading and research on the world of design or to simply leaf through the daily press. And, needless to say, a strategic place from which to contemplate the intense life that goes on in the hotel. The office. The Business Center, a small office at disposal of the guest, is located in the Tranquilo Txoko Corner. The Business Center is conceived with the idea of modern pleasure, to connect to Internet, check e-mail or communicate through the web. The lookout terrace. The guest can enjoy a large terrace where the dome that culminates the atrium is located. This dome is a skylight made of transparent glass that lets daylight into the building and is a source of light for the rooms that face the atrium. A copper trellis designed by Mariscal surrounds the glass dome and provides shelter for those who want a rest from the heights, furnished with comfortable loungers from which the guest can enjoy this privileged lookout on the Guggenheim Museum, the mountain and the estuary as well as appreciating the geography of a place where modernization has not prevented the natural landscape from surging with strength where the urbanized areas end. The world is perceived with serene distance from the heights and open air of the Buenavistas Terrace. The gym. A small, glassed-in area where the traveler can keep in shape and the executive keep his stress at bay.