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Crowne Plaza Prague **** de luxe (Crowne Plaza Prague ****)
Koulova 15 Praha 6 - Dejvice Phone: 296 537 111 http://www.crowneplaza.com/praguecypAbout
Crowne Plaza Prague (former Hotel Internacionál) | This daring building grew in the years 1952 to 1954 upon a resolution of the Defence Minister Alexej Čepička. Čepička, who was the son-in-law of Gottwald, hoped the ceremonious opening of the hotel would be attended by Stalin himself, and the result of his intention - that is to have all the 44 generals greeting Stalin from the staircase in the foyer - is still visible today. The original design of architect ing. František Jeřábek only had 20 stairs on the entrance staircase to the elevator, but Čepička enforced 2 extra stairs - so that his generals would all have a place. That is why the central building is at a different level than the left and the right wings.DecorationThe following painters participated in the hotel’s interior decorations: C. Bouda (also tapestries), W. Nowak and J. Gruss, prof. Ullman, prof. Novák, and sculptors Kodým, Hojerová and Sedlecká. Ceiling paintings were realized by Kumpán, Solar and Lišková. Further on, we must not leave out the wall mosaic by Max Švabinský. On the third floor, we can see glass reliefs with historical themes by Brychtová and Dostrašil.Beautiful door handles, which were installed for admiration on all the entrance doors, being shaped as original woodpeckers of brass, unfortunately disappeared definitively.During the reconstruction, quite a great portion of the original equipment was preserved, namely in the representative areas - equipment from precious types of wood and marble, part of the mobiliary, everything within the style of social realism.The buildingThere are 16 floors, the overall height is 88 m, the actual building is 67 m high.Today, there are 254 fully air-conditioned rooms and 18 conference rooms with a capacity of 10 - 400 persons.Reconstruction took place from the 8th March 1996 to the beginning of April 1997. Ceremonious opening took place in June 1997.The original fallout shelter, which in its greatest part allowed for a 2-week survival of 600 persons, was transformed into changing rooms for employees and apprentices.ChaliceThe chalice weighs 15 tons, it is 10 m high, the bloom of the chalice is 4.3 m wide and 3.8 m long.StarThe iron star, which weighed 250 kg and was 1.5 m long, was taken down in 1996, to be returned back in its place five months later. This red star was decorated with gold-plated lion and lime tree sprigs. The original red colour was replaced with light green after the reconstruction, to symbolize the world-wide hotel chain of Holiday Inn. Today, the star is turned towards Prague CastleHotel NamesThere were quite a lot of names changing in this one building - Družba, Čedok Hotel (from 1957), Internacionál, Holiday Inn and (so far the last one) Crowne Plaza. Yet the citizens living nearby never call it anything but „Internacionál“.
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