Hotel Moments**** is located in Andrássy Avenue, the most elegant street in Budapest’s inner city. Since the late 1870’s, uniform rows of palaces in the Eclectic and Neo-renaissance styles have flanked the Avenue a world heritage site today.
In revitalising this listed Eclectic apartment building after years of it standing empty, the development objective was repositioning the former elegant apartment building as a sophisticated hotel to achieve long-term sustainability. In its new function, it operates as a 99-room hotel offering four star plus services, breakfast/restaurant/bar facilities, conference rooms and a spa/gym.
The design concept for Hotel Moments took the existing features of the former palace and emphasised its historical features and ornaments, using present-day means for delivering an experience of sophistication and style. At the core of the concept was transforming the inner courtyard of the historic apartment building. The covered atrium hall serves a new role as the essential circulation and visual centre of the building.
The building and its surviving architectural features were the main inspirations for the interior design. As the building’s new function deviates from its original one, the space has been redesigned, its components retained but repositioned. The inner courtyard is no longer the open yard of an apartment building but an atrium space, and instead of balcony-corridors, access to inner units is via the cohesive space of a coherently structured and functioning building, where the main accents are on the most beautiful, historically prominent spaces.
This complex task involved installing new building engineering systems (ventilation, cooling and heating, sprinklers etc.) in this historic building, fully refurbishing the electrical systems, installing new communication systems and reinforcing the building frame to support the additional floor and the glass roof. These necessary updates remain practically invisible in the building and do not affect its historic look.
Material Used :
1. Glass roof - SCHÜCO
2. Shopfronts - SCHÜCO
3. Internal shading - WAREMA
4. Outershading - SYBA
5. Roof cladding - PREFA
6. Carpets - EGE
7. Electricalfittings - GIRA
