Even from a distance, and that includes other rival Berlin centers, the 118-meter high tower stands out and denotes City West as the capital’s new and future luxury and fashion quarter. The stores, hotels and apartment blocks around Kurfürstendamm are becoming ever more exclusive. A perfect fit: the new Zoofenster high-rise directly adjacent to the Gedächtniskirche – the main tenant is the Waldorf-Astoria Berlin. The branch of the legendary New York luxury hotel is outfitted in an elegant and refined vein with a touch of the Art Deco design, reminiscent of its Manhattan parent and the Golden Twenties in Berlin. Home to a new Romanisches Café (another legendary name), and a Lang Bar, named after Fritz Lang the director of such famous movies as Metropolis. The restaurant is run by no less a person than Michelin starred chef Pierre Gagnaire, demonstrating the preeminent level at which the hotel wishes to operate. The hotel exclusively features superior and deluxe rooms as well as 50 suites with a breathtaking view out over all of Berlin. The rooms are deliberately not uniformly fitted out, and instead display a subtle mix of materials and styles, in an endeavor to create a homely ambience. Thus, the rooms include a mélange of modern items such as flatscreens but also old-fashioned recamieres or delicate oval desks. Needless to say, the bathrooms are decidedly luxurious and, among other things, feature fittings by Axor, the Hansgrohe SE designer brand, as well as expansively illuminated mirrors with integrated TVs. The classically elegant marble interiors provide a great backdrop for the fittings from the Axor Citterio collection, which convey a sense of calm and luxury, fully in keeping with Citterio’s motto that “since the bathroom is a haven, it is all the more important to design select, valuable and beautiful items for it.” And that applies all the more to the pampered guests in an extraordinary luxury hotel.