Schulz Hotel, East Side Gallery, Berlin

An innovative concept developed in collaboration with teachers and students for school trips, but also for individual travellers and tour groups: the new Schulz Hotel in Berlin, near the East Side Gallery, is a hotel that focuses on networking and sustainability.


Holiday time is almost upon us and, like every year, we’re looking around to see the offers of sustainable, innovative locations, accommodation that isn’t just about a shower and a more or less comfortable bed or a decent breakfast.
Schulz Hotel opened last year in one of Berlin’s most iconic areas, really popular with tourists, the East Side Gallery, the longest piece of the Berlin wall still standing after the reunification of Germany.
Underpinning the Schulz Hotel is the philosophy of its three founders, Sascha Gechter, Oskar Kan and Nizar Rokbani, Berliners and friends for 30 years, who are right into the joie de vivre and who strongly believe in sharing ideas and networking to achieve success. Hence the desire to create a place where people not only sleep, a place where they could also meet, chat and get to know each other, perhaps by cooking something together in the shared guest kitchen, the heart and soul of the hotel. Just like when you sleep on the couch at a friend’s place, except that here you can enjoy all the comforts of the modern hotel rooms.
For the co-founder Nizar Rokbani, the Schulz Hotel is the logical continuation of his commitment to education. Rokbani founded the Freudberg Community School together with other colleagues. This school proposes a new learning model that brings together from every background and every neighbourhood of the city - just like the new Schulz Hotel. Another reason why the Schulz Hotel focuses on school groups in particular. You can tell just by the numbers: 345 rooms and 1000 beds, which means there are lots of dormitory-style rooms.
Another really important aspect is sustainability, and not just in terms of the environment by using only certified renewable energy sources, LED lights and water-saving appliances and showers, regional and seasonal raw materials, but also social. Schulz Hotel helps foreign personnel take up a career path in Germany with both tangible and administrative support. The employees who arrive from here from every continent give the hotel a warm, cosmopolitan feel, a reflection of the multicultural diversity of Berlin and of the world. What’s more, part of the hotel’s income is invested in social projects.
The Schulz Hotel is named after a German globetrotting gentleman that the three founders met on a holiday in South Africa, and its architecture is easy to interpret. The light-coloured facade with large windows doesn’t differ much from lots of other contemporary architecture in Berlin. The interior design of the rooms that can be easily adapted to the number of beds required, plays on a rather neutral palette of grey and beige with some pops of elegant slate blue. The wallpaper behind the bed head shows scenes of surreal journeys, almost like they bring to life the dreams of the guests on the wall, also a reference to the Berlin wall that can be seen through the windows.
Schulz Hotel combines the social nature of a hostel with the comfort of a hotel, social aspects with environmental aspects. It strives to be the perfect place for anyone who wants to have a responsible holiday really close to the attractions of Berlin, which are within walking or cycling distance, or with the Ostbahnhof practically attached to the hotel, by public transport.

Christiane Bürklein

Project: Sascha Gechter, Oskar Kan and Nizar Rokbani
Location: Berlin, Germany
Year: 2018
Images: courtesy of Schulz Hotel
Find out more: https://www.schulzhotels.com/