The Rosewood Guangzhou may be the tallest five-star hotel in the world, reaching all the way to the 108th floor of the CTF Finance Center. But it also scales heights that are more metaphorical, and those are the ones we’re more interested in: you’d be hard pressed to find contemporary interiors more elegant than Rosewood’s, and the views are naturally extraordinary; meanwhile the services are comprehensive, including an expansive spa, pool, and fitness center, a surplus of meeting and events space, and no fewer than seven restaurants and bars, including Too High, the vertiginous 107th-floor cocktail bar.

This is the picture of the perfectly modern luxury hotel: a skyscraper in a huge Chinese city, with some 263 sprawling, richly finished, highly luxurious rooms and suites. The design, by Tony Chi, is a touch conservative, but that’s to be expected given the audience — it just means the visual pleasures are subtle ones, derived from balanced lines and expertly selected materials. The views don’t hurt either, and the bathrooms, the current frontier of the luxury-hotel arms race, have to be seen to be believed.

The Chinese city of Guangzhou finds the world’s luxury-hotel brands in top form, and the Four Seasons Hotel Guangzhou is a fine example. Occupying the top 30 floors of the 103-story Guangzhou International Finance Centre, it towers over the Pearl River and takes in commanding views of the entire cityscape. Eminently palatable interiors and faultless high-end comforts are the core of the Four Seasons brand, and they’re certainly present here.