The new face of Novotel
Sweden is usually associated with designer furniture and minimalist attractive architecture that blends seamlessly with its surroundings. But Skanska got it very wrong in the 1970s when it built the Forum Hotel, now the Novotel Hotel, on ul. Nowogrodzka.
The drab, brown building, which has more in common with an IKEA cupboard than the cutting edge of Swedish architecture, towers above the city center at 106 meters.
But now Orbis Hotels, which owns the Novotel, is set to renovate a significant chunk of the Warsaw skyline and is spending zł.15 million on a new facade for the building. The facelift is part of a zł.100 million renovation of the hotel.
The new front elevation will be modern in appearance, using plenty of metal and glass materials. Orbis spokesperson Hanna Węglewska told local press: "It's time for a change. It will be very elegant and very modern. The new elevation will fit perfectly into the intersection of al. Jerozolimskie and ul. Marszałkowska."
Orbis is currently raising the standard of its hotels worldwide and the new exterior is reflected in the hotel's interior, with new furnishings and fittings in all the hotel's rooms and suites. Węglewska insists that this will not lead to an increase in prices in the hotel, and a renovation of the hotel's ground floor will complete the process.
Novotel's development is part of a wider renovation of the area around Rotunda. The municipal authorities have already organized an architectural competition and are considering tearing down the Metropol Hotel and the Cepelia building.
"From what I hear it is going to be very attractive," said Marek Dąbrowski, an independent hotel analyst. "It obviously needed a major facelift, I know they had done extensive work inside and the brown, rusty color that would have been a hit in the 1970s when the hotel was built is not really the sort of image that Orbis now wants to project."
The drab, brown building, which has more in common with an IKEA cupboard than the cutting edge of Swedish architecture, towers above the city center at 106 meters.
But now Orbis Hotels, which owns the Novotel, is set to renovate a significant chunk of the Warsaw skyline and is spending zł.15 million on a new facade for the building. The facelift is part of a zł.100 million renovation of the hotel.
The new front elevation will be modern in appearance, using plenty of metal and glass materials. Orbis spokesperson Hanna Węglewska told local press: "It's time for a change. It will be very elegant and very modern. The new elevation will fit perfectly into the intersection of al. Jerozolimskie and ul. Marszałkowska."
Orbis is currently raising the standard of its hotels worldwide and the new exterior is reflected in the hotel's interior, with new furnishings and fittings in all the hotel's rooms and suites. Węglewska insists that this will not lead to an increase in prices in the hotel, and a renovation of the hotel's ground floor will complete the process.
Novotel's development is part of a wider renovation of the area around Rotunda. The municipal authorities have already organized an architectural competition and are considering tearing down the Metropol Hotel and the Cepelia building.
"From what I hear it is going to be very attractive," said Marek Dąbrowski, an independent hotel analyst. "It obviously needed a major facelift, I know they had done extensive work inside and the brown, rusty color that would have been a hit in the 1970s when the hotel was built is not really the sort of image that Orbis now wants to project."
