modernisation and addition of the hotel

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A complex modernisation of a listed Art Nouveau hotel at the Wenceslas Square included restoration of the extant interiors and furniture and construction of a new building in the courtyard. The new volume is an eight-storied ellipse resulting from the proportions of the site and its optimal use whose longitudinal SW-NE axis is perpendicular to the Wenceslas Square. The elliptic shape of the new building draws from the Art Nouveau style, too. This way it is, aside from its modern form, at the same time reminiscence to the shapes and the interior of the historic building.

The renowned hotel at the upper part of the Wenceslas Square developed from two town houses, originally related to horse-trading that used to be performed at the square.
Since 1844, both houses had one owner, Vilém Hauser, who ran a hotel here. In 1903, the houses were altered at large. A spacious coffee shop was planned behind the front face of the new hotel together with a large new dining room in the so-far undeveloped part of the courtyard between the inner wings. The project was carried out by architect Bělský; Bedřich Bendelmayer, professor Ohman’s disciple, developed the drawings. The first project planned to demolish the front building and a greater part of the right and left wing including the foundation. A new four-storied Art Nouveau hotel was erected on the site this way acquired. The building contained a restaurant, a coffee shop, and other functionally related rooms on the ground floor and the mezzanine, and in a part of the cellar. Guest rooms and hotel facilities were accommodated on the remaining stories. To fit in this rather complex program, the architect designed a deep main building. He solved the associated problems of sufficient daylighting of all areas by placing elliptical openings in the ceiling of the coffee shop and the vestibule in front of the dining room (currently the French Restaurant) and glass roofs above the central atrium, the staircase, and the dining room.

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