Original features and incredibly reasonable rates will leave architecture enthusiasts thrilled to stay within Le Corbusier’s modernist Cité Radieuse, one of the 20th century’s most iconic buildings. This is not your average budget hotel.

Location: Despite its relative distance from the centre of town (the nearest metro station is a 20-minute walk away), the building benefits from easy access to a main bus route, and has stunning views to boot. The city’s official stadium is within walking distance, and there are two parks close at hand.

Style & character: What this brute of a building lacks in modern luxuries is made up for in spades with history and character. The rooms have been left untouched for the most part, and are crammed with original features, from the wardrobe and weathered wooden doors designed by Le Corbusier’s collaborator Charlotte Perriand to the bathroom tiles and angled wall lamps imagined by the man himself. The hotel is situated on the third and fourth floors of the apartment block; guests share the building with residents, experiencing the full extent of the modernist experiment from within its very corridors.

Value for money: Double rooms from €79 (£67) year-round, an incredibly reasonable rate for the opportunity to sleep within an architectural icon. Breakfast €11 (£9). Free Wi-Fi.

- Based on the monastic cells that Le Corbusier studied while designing his own monastery in Lyon, the smaller “cabin” room is compact without ever feeling claustrophobic, thanks to the architect’s sharp understanding of volume. An original Charlotte Perriand wardrobe doubles as a built-in bedside table, and dark wooden floors lead to a small, tiled balcony overlooking the mountains. The toilet is shared with the adjoining cabin room, but larger double rooms come with en suites and an original LC04 chaise longue to recline in.
- Le Ventre de l’Architecte, the building’s original restaurant, is one of the city’s most sought-out addresses. Set dinner menus are gastronomical and priced accordingly (€61/£51 for four light courses that could include fish of the day with asparagus and vanilla beurre blanc, and strawberries with basil for dessert). Served in the same room, serenely overlooking the sea, breakfast is a pleasingly fresh buffet of pastries, cold cuts and home-made jams, with a self-service cooker for the perfect boiled egg.
- The impeccable staff are friendly yet self-effacing, helpful when called upon. Conceived as a “machine for living”, the building was originally designed with its own in-house school, library and solarium, and although the internal “shopping street” has since lost its supermarket, it still hosts a bakery, bookshop, dentist’s office and furniture shop.
- Guests are also granted after-hours private access to the spectacular rooftop, where among 360-degree views of the surrounding mountains and seafront stands the original gym, recently transformed by designer Ora Ito into the MAMO contemporary art centre.