Even if you aren’t a tourist and live in Joburg, it’s worth staying at 12 Decades Hotel in the Maboneng precinct for a truly unique experience – every time you stay there.

 In fact, you might want to book yourself in for 12 nights, so you can experience each of the 12 rooms,  each representing a decade between 1886 to 2006, and each designed by a local artist or designer.

  Staying at this unique concept hotel is like a lucky packet draw. As you turn the key and open your room door, it’s hard to quell the anticipation of what you might find.

 Staying at the hotel in Joburg’s once-notorious Doornfontein area, you’ll have access to all of the precinct’s facilities, from watching art films at the Bioscope, to dining and listening to jazz at Pata Pata  – all a hop, skip and a jump away from the hotel. To top it all off, view the Joburg skyline from the Mainstreet Life rooftop.  

The adventure starts when you step inside the mirrored elevator. Even better, take the stairs up to the hotel on the seventh floor. Each floor of the seven-storey apartment and hotel building, once an abandoned industrial building, is themed. 

  Make it, rather out of breath, to the seventh floor and you’ll find a large fish tank decorated with an old tyre, along with giant word art, and illustrations lining the walls, among other quirky discoveries. Seating areas are found in unexpected nooks. Monochromatic decor, clean lines and sleek, modern furniture by Dokter and Misses give an uncluttered, sparse feeling that is welcoming rather than cold.

Designed by Kim Stern, one of the rooms titled, “The House That Jack Built”, commemorates the gold rush decade, 1906 to 1916. Staying in it is like sleeping in a giant gold nugget. The title, in case you’re wondering, is not just a reference to a British nursery rhyme, but to Jack Barnato Joel, an early mining magnate.

Where various knick-knacks are not spray painted gold, Stern uses warm plywood cladding – from the boxes lining the wall to plywood sheets overhead – to  achieve a gilded appearance.

  While each hotel room is unique, the minimalist feel from the rest of the hotel and building seems to carry throughout. In this room, bulbs hang from wires attached to the overhead plywood beams. It’s remarkable that a room can be a work of art and convey social commentary, but these hotel rooms do.

   This hotel is for discerning, curious travellers who want something more than the run-of-the-mill norm. Because there is plenty of that around.

Do not expect all the frills of luxury hotels. Instead, what you get is (depending on what you draw out of the lucky packet) a catwalk and backstage lighting rigs in your room, or red velvet curtains, and hanging telescopes...

    Now that beats staying at a franchise outlet any day of the week.