The Drechsler Palace in Budapest, former home to the Ballet Institute, recently reopened as the W Budapest, the capital's newest luxury hotel.
Located on Andrássy Avenue, the Drechsler Palace is a UNESCO World Heritage site. This Neo-Renaissance office building was built in 1866 to house the pension institute for the Hungarian railway company. Located opposite the Opera House, the building was used for teaching dance classes starting from the 1930s, and after the war, the Ballet Institute moved in. The deteriorating monument was sold in 1997, but it took another quarter of a century for Drechsler Palace to be restored to its former glory.
Hungary-based architectural firm Bánáti + Hartvig and London-based interior design firm Bowler James Brindley headed the project. The design-build team carefully renovated and reimagined Drechsler Palace, drawing inspiration from its rich cultural history and multiple identities as a former café, community center and Hungarian State Ballet Institute to create fascinating design narratives. In addition to the palace's history, the building also has a "second layer" of design history through the newly added decorative elements, playfully positioning the two sides of the city, Buda and Pest, side by side.
Hungary’s vibrant and eclectic cultural scene, including the city’s famous love of chess and deep-rooted connection to ballet, can also be seen throughout the new hotel. Subtle nods to both are expressed in the form of bespoke chess-piece lamps and monochrome tiled marble flooring or soft pink hues, curved lines and lighting inspired by the graceful fluidity of the dance form. A few of Hungary’s most famous exports, Harry Houdini and Zsa Zsa Gabor, have sparked a creative vision for the interior concept, expressed using mirrors to create optical illusions and nostalgic touches of Hollywood glamor.
The intertwining design narratives exist throughout the hotel’s 151 distinctive guestrooms, including 45 suites.
Atlas Concorde's Marvel Shine and Marvel Dream porcelain tile were specified throughout the hotel. The innate elegance of marble-effect porcelain tiles enhances the building’s sumptuousness and blends with the modern style of the well-known hotel chain, providing high non-slip performance and wear resistance. Marvel Dream brings the undisputed elegance of Italian marble to the Hungarian capital, with marble’s intense veining and natural hues. At the same time, Marvel Shine offers fine white marble selected directly from Italy’s tradition of grand monuments, thus underscoring the building’s historic character.
In the sumptuous bathrooms of the 150 rooms and suites, the two collections combine to create dramatic geometries that evoke the city's love of chess.
The Marvel Dream and Marvel Shine marble effect collections were also used for the floors of the hotel's restaurant, where the purity of the snow-white background crisscrossed by a network of gray veins alternates with deep black, enriched by light brush strokes in an environment made warm by blue and gold furnishings that express a retro-flavored glamor.
