The most visually striking of all the new Beijing hotels will without a doubt be the Mandarin Oriental, designed by the wildly imaginative Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. The main tower of the 241-room hotel looks like a series of jagged silver flaps that have been hewn together, like a medieval suit of armor; large, zigzagging metal blocks are also favored in an adjacent structure. It may even take some attention away from the Koolhaas building next door, itself a fairly wacky structure known as the Trouser Legs. The hotel’s interior will also provide plenty of gasps when people see its circular ballroom, surrounded by water, and its Champagne bar, suspended over a staircase. When it comes to service, expect something less experimental; Mandarin Oriental has honed its reputation with a discreet and sophisticated sensibility.

Close by is the new Park Hyatt, designed by China veteran John Portman, the man behind the Portman Centre in Shanghai. The 237-room hotel, due to open in the spring, will occupy the top floors of the central tower of the sixty-three-story Beijing Yintai Centre, just across from the China World hotel, and will feature a landscaped rooftop garden and the city’s highest restaurant.

Scheduled for completion this summer is a venture by Hong Kong developer Swire Properties on the fringes of the rather raggedy nightlife zone of Sanlitun. The boutique hotel, which will have just ninety-nine rooms, will be the centerpiece of a newly built cultural zone that developers are likening to Covent Garden, in London.