Budapest Has a Grand New Hotel
As the 19th century careened into the 20th, the population of Central European cities exploded. So, too, did the number of imaginative—mind blowing, really—buildings that to this day make Prague, Vienna, and Budapest some of the most beautiful cities in the world. Buildings were made of elaborately carved stone, tiles in shocking colors, and architectural elements right out of a Mucha illustration.
While we think of the Austro-Hungarian nobility at this time as stuffy and stuck in the past, some were not and got in on the action. The Archduchess Maria Klotild was one, snatching up two lots at the end of the century on either side of the road at the end of a major bridge crossing the Danube in Budapest. She hired Kálmán Giergl and Flóris Korb, two of the most significant Hungarian architects at the time who also worked on the iconic New York Palace Hotel. (If you have some time the New York Cafe inside is worth checking out even though it’s extremely touristy). The archduchess’ twin buildings were groundbreaking for their time both in terms of construction—steel clad in stone—and comfort—elevators. They featured shops and cafes on their ground floors with residential units above, and the two buildings were capped at the corner by a fetching Neo-Rococo tower.
Like much of Budapest in the aftermath of Communism, the magnificent buildings looked like they had seen better days. But this spring Marriott’s The Luxury Collection finished its top to bottom restoration and redecoration of one of them, Matild Palace, making it the the latest selection in Beast Travel’s series on exciting new hotels, The New Room With a View.