Press Room / Buddha moves into a Palace

Buddha moves into a Palace

2010.09.13.

Construction of the twin Klotild Palaces opened Budapest’s east-west axis in 1900. In a  globalised 2010, its reconstruction as Buddha-Bar hotel Klotild Palace brings eastern ways to the Danube. Tibor Sáringer previews the plans.
 

Anyone looking across the Danube from the docks that lined the Tabán embankment of the late 19th century would see a simple skyline in Pest: the neo-Renaissance style City Hall and the spartan City Church. A narrow street, Hatvani utca, connected riverside Pest with Rákóczi út. It was only in 1897, with construction of a world-class bridge, Erzsébet híd, that today’s main drag – Szabadsajtó utca, Ferenciek tere and Kossuth Lajos utca gave shape to a new city centre. Along those streets were built world-class buildings, signs of Budapest’s millennial self-confidence.

The new gateway boasted the world’s widest distance between its two pillars, 290 metres, and it was outfitted with Jugendstil splendour. Opened in 1903 by Austrian emperor and Hungarian king Franz Joseph, it didn’t use the latest technology – New York’s Brooklyn Bridge was the world’s first steelwire suspension bridge with a wider total span, at 510 metres, but the city insisted on commissioning local suppliers and steel wires were not made in Hungary at the time.

Construction of the bridge meant the elimination of the unique City Hall and most of the dinkier buildings around it. On the valuable plots next to the sensational new bridge, the Habsburgs’ put a conspicuous stamp on the neighbourhood in the space of a year between 1899 and 1900: the stunning twin buildings of Klotild Palace, which symmetrically flanked the new street approaching the bridge. Some refer to the building’s towers as Klotild and Matild – the latter was however just a popular nickname. They were commissioned by Archduchess Klotild Habsburg, Joseph’s daughter-inlaw, with their design emphatically serving as gates to the new bridge, based on plans by Kálmán Giergl and Flóris Korb, who also designed the New York Palace, the Academy of Music and Luxus Áruház.

According to varoskep.hu’ bloggers, the Klotild twins housed shops on the ground and mezzanine levels and featured the era’s unique stone-covered iron framework. On the second level, where ceiling height is the most imposing, various associations found their splendid home, while the top floors had luxurious residences occupied by wealthy tenants. The towers, at 48 metres, resemble the Habsburg crown. The buildings were among the first to operate lifts; heating stoves were made by the era’s tiling star Zsolnay; and the windows were must-have Miksa Róth glass. Famous modernist painter Vilmos Aba-Novák ran a school here on the second level.

By 1917, the Klotild towers went to a new owner, then suffered serious damage in World War II and the 1956 revolution. During the communist era, the Hungarian Post Office set up its headquarters here, later to be transferred to a bank, which, in 2002 sold it to a developer. Thanks to this recent property transfer, one half of the Klotild development, the northern building on the Váci-Szabadsajtó-Kígyó utca block, will become the new buddhabar hotel.

‘We bring Buddha to Pest,’ laughs Jo Gowie, the director of hotel development and future general manager. The buddha-bar hotel Klotild Palace will use its stand-alone landmark to create 102 truly luxurious guest rooms, including some 20 suites, and its signature restaurant
and café. It will add to the global assortment of uniquely cool hotel spaces in the Asian-fusion empire belonging to Raymond Visan, who is, incidentally, of Transylvanian background.

‘The original buddha-bar restaurant concept, the music, fusion cuisine, Asian colonial interior design with a very specific colour scheme, themed around the mystery of Buddha, was developed into a hotel concept,’ explains Gowie. ‘It brings uniqueness and quality together.
The Budapest property will also feature an Asian design. For example, we’ll use a dragon motif throughout the hotel and in the rooms.’

Based on the interior design plans, Klotild’s Asian fusion will not only be über chic but also intricate and tremendous in detail. Every room will be slightly different in some, for example, a dragon’s tail will adorn the bedhead with the rest of the dragon painted across the wardrobe, giving the decor a dynamic and coherent fluidity. Klotild’s dragon will also surface in the Sky Bar, here made up of pixels. Amongst the myriad awesome Asian-accented interior design stunners is a separator between the lobby and the bar: an oversize  Chinese counting board, and of course, Buddha will often pop up, without lurking like an overkill. The colour scheme is dominated by red, black, burgundy, gold and silver hues. It can be a sensory overload, but is a truly sensational relief from the beige monochrome and/or Monarchical replica that so many local top-class hotels seem to prefer.

Room sizes start at 28 sqm with suites at 100-plus. Asian inspirations apart, the rooms will have spacious bathrooms to accommodate two square shower heads as well as a 180cm x 180cm square bathtub. In some of the rooms, the bathroom will be separated from the living space by a floor-to-ceiling glass wall, again decorated with the dragon motif. The suites on the fifth floor will be duplexes, with a small tower directly above them opened up and integrated into three levels’ worth of ceiling height. The two Buddha suites will come complete with meditation space and the spa suite with a private spa area.

With an entrance directly on Váci utca for outside guests, the internationally hyped buddha-bar restaurant will seat 240, and yes, it will feature the trademark XXL Buddha statue at about seven metres, and a mezzanine to accommodate the DJs who provide buddha-bar’s trademark musical imprint. It will serve pan-Asian fusion delicacies.

Two Siddharta Cafés will flank Szabadsajtó utca and neighbouring Kígyó utca, and they will be joined through the gallery above the building’s cross passage. A two-level sky bar on the sixth floor will be capped with a slanted glass roof. From here it will be possible to enjoy so-far unavailable views of Budapest. Buddhattitude, the spa, will occupy the basement level.

‘Klotild will be the only five-star hotel in a palace building that was built and used by royals,’ notes Gowie.

Set to open sometime in the course of the summer of 2011, the city’s grande dame will once again join global royalty, this time as a dragon lady.

Buddha-Bar Hotel Budapest Klotild Palace is scheduled to open in summer 2011.

Source: Time Out Budapest