Juhász Gyula - Szántó András: Hotels - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

style of eclecticism by the turn of the century on the busy Danube promenade had sustained severe damage in the bombardments during World War II. The reconstruction of the area was a crucial, and much debated, task of urban development. As early as 1946, when the first invitation of tenders was issued, it was suggested that the new hotel that was to be built should be raised on a small construction site and the only direction its expansion could take was upwards in an area already heavily built over. Accordingly, the tenders awarded first prize in the competition of 1963 were both designs for high-rise hotels. Eventually, however, those arguing that such tower-like constructions would be totally out of place in the existing horizontal architectural outlay of the city carried the day.

József Finta was commissioned to design the InterContinental in 1966. The mass of the building was given a simple, well-balanced and yet dynamic, shape. The T-shaped, nine-floor hotel contains more than 350 rooms. The guiding principle of the design was to orientate the bulk of he building towards the Danube. The rooms and the communal spaces all command a splendid panorama of the river, while the back front closes the building off the street behind it in the manner of an unbroken wall.

Since its completion in 1969, the building has been reconstructed a number of times and renamed once. While its original name has been assumed by what was

The Hotel Marriott from the Danhre

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