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The 'Zero-Star Hotel' in Switzerland Opens June 5th

Where: Teufen, Canton Appenzell Outer Rhodes, Switzerland

We're all about odd and unusual hotel offerings today, but seriously now: who would want to stay at a "zero-star hotel"? No-frills is one thing, but anti-luxury is an experiment in inconvenience and unwelcome irony that we are not so into. But maybe you're into that sort of thing. It's "art." So they say.

We mentioned the Null Stern Hotel in Switzerland back in January: two brothers came up with (and run) this hotel concept as an art installation slash business venture; inside a subterranean Swiss air raid shelter, "hotel rooms" are arranged sleeper-dormitory-style, with no walls between beds, a shared bath, and limited hot water. Instead of heaters, there are rubber hot water bottles hanging from clotheslines up along the walls to provide "low-tech personal heat systems." Oh, and there are no windows. The hotel was previously not open to guests, but alas, look what landed in our inbox today:

The Null Stern Hotel is set to open its doors on Friday, June 5, 2009 in Teufen, Canton Appenzell Outer Rhodes, Switzerland. After months of meticulous preparation from concept to reality and with currently over 1,000 reservations on the books prior to the official opening, Frank and Patrik Riklin, from the Atelier für Sonderaufgaben (St. Gallen), concept artists and inventors of the Null Stern Hotel, said, "The time for an unusual extension of hospitality has come; we are eager to see how the art installation will further develop as a business idea with real guests coming from all over the world".

1,000 people want to stay here. 1,000 people! What are the odds that we could get one of these things going stateside in our basement? Sigh. If you want to be number 1,001, try your luck at snagging a rezzie here. At least it's cheap to stay here.