Page 232 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 1 Fig. 2 Fig. 3 Fig. 4

THE GRAND HOTEL arranged units, while some designs feature one or two large internal The grand hotels of the late nineteenth century operated in
courtyards modelled on the grand hotels of the European cities. a closed world. At the start of the century hotels were still simple
IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY: DESERTION The Beau-Rivage in Ouchy opened its doors at this time of rapid houses which offered their guests little in the way of leisure facilities,

THEN REDISCOVERY growth, having won one of the rare architectural competitions apart from a small dining room; yet this situation changed radically
during the belle époque. Around 1900, the grand hotel offered
in the Swiss hotel sector; it was the largest hotel building in
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French-speaking Switzerland at the time, and the first to feature a everything a tourist could wish for: luxurious rooms, dining rooms,
symmetrical five-section facade. stucco-ornamented ballrooms and famous paintings (fig. 7). A
large number of facilities offered entertainment and a full range
THE LAST HOTEL BOOM BEFORE 1914 of therapeutic treatments. The hotels built on magnificent sites
Following the economic downturn which hit the tourist overlooking the lakes were provided with vast outdoor grounds,
sector during the 1870s, it was not until the late 1880s that an recreational parks featuring promenades leading through forests
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improvement in the Swiss economy paved the way for a new, and different types of garden. The ‘balcony’ at Caux, an 800-metre
Roland FLÜCKIGER-SEILER
intensive phase of construction that was to continue through to long terrace-style pathway, is one of the most magnificent examples
THE FIRST TOURIST CENTRES brickwork facade divided symmetrically into three sections along the beginning of the First World War. Between 1880 and 1914 the in the Swiss hotel sector. It was built at the same time as the Palace
The history of the nineteenth-century modern hotel industry with architectural embellishments in the Neoclassical style. These number of hotels in Switzerland grew from 1000 to around 3600 de Caux – with 300 bedrooms offering the latest in comfort – and
starts in the 1830s, when the towns on the banks of the great Swiss were the defining features that first established hotel construction and the number of beds from 57,000 to 170,000. In many places allowed Ami Chessex, the king of this hotel empire, to build sports
lakes became the first tourist centres. This trend’s origins are in as a distinctive genre within the architectural repertoire. only the 1960s would record a higher number of room nights than facilities unrivalled in Switzerland: pedestrian walkways and tennis
Geneva, where Switzerland’s first grand hotel, the Hôtel des Bergues this period. Nonetheless, the Swiss hotel industry of the time was courts in summer, ice rinks, tobogganing and bobsleigh tracks in
(fig. 1), opened on 1 May 1834, following the principles previously THE HOTEL BOOM OF THE 1860S characterised by excessive capacity, inadequate financial reserves winter (see fig. 6).
established in 1765 by the Hôtel d’Angleterre at Sécheron, just Between 1860 and the mid-1870s Switzerland saw its first and large mortgages with foreign lenders. 7
outside Geneva’s old town: a location with panoramic views, major hotel boom. During these fifteen or so years the number During the belle époque, and through to the start of the war, OPPOSITION TO HOTEL BUILDINGS
preferably over the lake or the nearby mountains, comfortable of hotels and boarding houses in the tourist regions more than hotel architecture typically featured a diverse range of historic styles, Right from the start the hotel industry encountered
interior furnishings fulfilling the requirements of the aristocratic doubled on average. In Montreux, for example, the number of plundering the riches of Baroque and Renaissance architecture. criticism. In many places, and from the early nineteenth century,
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clientele (the majority of whom came from England) and finally an beds increased from 800 to more than 1600. At the same time, Mansard roofs were an integral feature of hotel architecture and the architecture designed for foreigners was regarded with a
infrastructure offering a wide variety of leisure and entertainment many new facilities were built on the banks of the great lakes, roofs with domes were very popular (fig. 5). By contrast, the gently great deal of scepticism. In 1818, the Winterthur writer Ulrich
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options outside the hotel. The classical architectural style of Hôtel adding to the overall number of tourist locations and including sloping style of roof used for the Beau-Rivage in Ouchy in 1861 Hegner criticised the ‘architectural excrescences’ of Interlaken, a
des Bergues was to serve as a model for many hotels built in later the discovery of magnificent sites with lake views like Glion or had definitely become outdated. After a few timid experiments, place which was formerly ‘calm and rural, a place for the quiet
years. In the late 1830s, a number of establishments with large the famous Bürgenstock near Lake Lucerne (fig. 3). In Valais, the the ‘château’ style was definitively established with Hotel Gütsch in enjoyment of nature’s grandeur’ but which had now been disfigured,
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capacities were built along the upper shore of Lake Geneva. Hôtel concentration of peaks higher than 4000 metres prompted the Lucerne. This style reached its high point in 1902 with the Palace resembling a ‘glittering settlement for rich foreigners’. In 1857, on
Gibbon of Lausanne opened its doors in 1839, Hôtel Byron located growth of a dedicated alpine hotel industry located between de Caux by Eugène Jost, one of the greatest architects active in the his second visit to Lucerne, Leo Tolstoy was annoyed by the
to the east of Château de Chillon welcomed its first guests two years the altitudes of 1500 and 2500 metres – hotels which originally construction of tourist facilities in Switzerland during the belle new Quai Schweizerhof built in place of the old wooden bridge:
later (fig. 2) and the Hôtel des Trois Couronnes in Vevey opened functioned as ‘base camps’ for alpine climbers (fig. 4). The hotels époque (fig. 6). The facades of this period display an architectural ‘Yesterday evening I arrived in Lucerne where I am staying in the
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in 1842. The architecture of these large hotel buildings from the of this period reflect the strong growth in the tourist industry: repertoire of unsurpassed richness, the stuff of any hotelier’s dreams. Schweizerhof, the best hotel in town. […] Because of the great influx of
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1830s is clearly different from the style of the older buildings, which they were significantly larger, with the average number of beds Emil Vogt of Lucerne, an architect who was very involved in the English tourists, their needs, their taste and their money, the old bridge
still drew on local and rural sources of inspiration. The distinctive per establishment increasing from 40 to 80. The tripartite facade hotel sector, summed up the situation in a letter to a friend in 1897: has been cast aside and in its place they have built a quay that’s straight
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features of an 1830s hotel generally include a two- or three-storey design tended to be replaced by a division into five symmetrically ‘The most important thing in my work is satisfying my clientele entirely’. 9 as a die.’ (fig. 8)
Geneva, Hôtel des Bergues. Villeneuve, Hôtel Byron. Bürgenstock. Fiesch, Hôtel Jungfrau at the foot of the Eggishorn.

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