Page 236 - Livre Beau Rivage Palace

Fig. 10 Fig. 11 Fig. 12

continued to be published. From the 1950s onwards, many hotels, the way forwards for this new hotel strategy. Companies in the embarked on a thesis on the hotel buildings of Haute-Engadine, on Swiss hotel construction between 1830 and 1920, financed by
large and small, were stripped of their historicist facades with Hilton empire offer the latest conveniences, bathrooms for every extending the scope of the field towards the Alpine region. 35 the Swiss National Fund. Some tourist cantons have also listed
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impunity. The most famous ‘victims’, which are still operating today, room, a tv and a telephone with a direct line. In the post-war Despite these pioneering works, specialist studies of hotel their hotel heritage in inventories of architectural and heritage
include the Schweizerhof in Lucerne and the Victoria-Jungfrau period this set them apart from the old grand hotels, which could architecture remain few and far between. The centenary study of history: Grisons was the pioneer here, as early as 1980, focusing
in Interlaken, both of which had their lavish facade decorations not envisage such investments, often for financial reasons. In the the hotels of Loèche-les-Bains, in 1996, still remains an isolated on Engadine. In 1995 the canton of Lucerne followed suit with an
removed. Several hotels were demolished either during the war 1950s and 1960s, the hotels which clearly set themselves apart case for a hotel company to this day and Lugano is one of the initial inventory covering the town of Lucerne, followed in 1999
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or in the post-war years: including the Grand Hôtel des Bains in from the historic, traditional hotel culture, at least in terms of their rare tourist locations, alongside Montreux, with an academically by the canton of Valais which produced a brief inventory of the
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Aigle (fig. 15) and the Grand Hôtel of Jaman aux Avants (fig. 16) progressive architecture, were increasingly successful. Around 1960, rigorous history of its hotel sector. The volumes of insa dedicated entire canton territory. 44
in 1945; the Grand Hôtel de la Dent du Midi in Champéry (fig. the hotel buildings of the nineteenth century were barely accorded to Geneva, Lausanne, Vevey, Montreux, Thoune, Lucerne, Locarno, Since the late 1970s these publications have been joined by
17) in 1946; Hotel Axenfels in Morschach in 1947; Hôtel du Lac contemporary status: their ‘renovation’ became a matter of urgency. Lugano and Davos supply a generally satisfying insight into the other works treating subjects including the historic hotel. A joint
near the railway station in Lucerne (fig. 18) and the hotel at Rigi- Walter Schnyder (1907-2007), manager of the Beau-Rivage Palace history of hotels and tourism in these towns. The omission of publication by Louis Gaulis and René Creux, dedicated to the
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First in 1948; Hôtel du Grand Muveran in Villars in 1950; and from 1957 onwards and a former employee of the Hilton hotel Interlaken and Saint-Moritz in a series which specifically covers history of the great pioneers in the Swiss hotel sector, an initiative of
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the Grand Hôtel in Vevey, a genuine icon of Swiss hotel history chain, also undertook works of this nature at the time. the belle époque certainly seems a regrettable absence in terms of the Swiss National Tourist Office, appeared in 1976. In the same
in 1956 (fig. 19). the history of tourism. For many important tourist locations such as year, Fred Ammann published an extended series of pamphlets on
As the climactic act of this wave of demolition in the post- THE REDISCOVERY OF HISTORIC HOTELS Saint-Moritz, Pontresina and Arosa in Grisons, Engelberg, Weggis, the major Swiss hotelier families. In 1990, Thierry Ott produced
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war years, in the mid-1950s Heimatschutz staged a ‘cleansing’ of the IN ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS Brunnen and Vitznau by Lake Lucerne, and the Bernese Oberland a summary overview of the Swiss grand hotels, in a pocket-sized
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Rigi summit. The 1951 Écu d’or fundraising campaign was used to It was Professor Adolf Reinle, originally from Lucerne and and Valais regions, the history of the hotel sector is covered only by format. Finally, in a work dedicated to the sanatorium published
purge the famous summit of all its historicist hotels, some of which teaching in Zurich, who devoted a chapter of the fourth volume local history studies which generally fail to cite their sources and in 1992, Quintus Miller explored – as he describes it in his
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had been there for over a century (fig. 20). In the jubilee report of his Kunstgeschichte der Schweiz to hotel construction, initiating a do not always stand up to close scrutiny. 39 introduction – a marginal phenomenon in the hotel sector.
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of the Société Suisse des Hôteliers of 1957, Peter Meyer, now a new phase in the assessment of these hotel buildings. He was the Around the millennium, two particularly striking figures Research into the hotel architecture of the belle époque
professor, launched a last verbal assault on the hotel buildings of first twentieth-century art historian to stop describing the hotels in the hotel architecture of the belle époque were studied by also got under way in Europe in the 1980s. In 1982, art
the belle époque. Published under the title Hotelbau einst und jetzt of the belle époque in negative terms. His was a vital contribution, architectural historians. In 1998, the Museum im Bellpark at historian Michael Schmitt set the grand hotel between 1870
(‘Hotel construction then and now’), his criticism was already more to some extent heralding their rehabilitation. Yet despite this Kriens analysed – in an exhibition with accompanying publication and 1920 in its wider European context; in 1991, Maria Wenzel
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moderate, however. Only the buildings of the late nineteenth pioneering work, research in the history of Swiss architecture – the work of Emil Vogt, an architect who was active in hotel examined a similar type of building in Germany. There are
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century, which he describes as ‘fantasy creations lacking all rigour’, are focusing on hotel architecture before the 1980s is rare. In 1976, building. In 1999, Dave Lüthi devoted his degree dissertation to also some publications considering the typology of hotel and
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utterly rejected. He now has some positive words for the ‘romantic’ Roman Ottiger, a doctoral student under Adolf Reinle, examined Eugène Jost, the leading architect in hotel construction in French- similar buildings in the French-speaking countries. 1985 saw
architectural forms of preceding periods – the turrets and roof the construction of the first hotel buildings in Lucerne between speaking Switzerland. Two years later, an exhibition at the epfl in the publication of a large-scale overview of French spa towns
ornaments, the fretwork – and advises against rashly demolishing Schwanenplatz and the Nationalquai, opening up a completely Lausanne paid homage to this architect’s work. The same year – accompanying an exhibition – under the title Villes d’eaux en
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them. In the same publication, however, architect Theo Schmid new field of research – not just in Switzerland but in Europe, too. saw the publication of Hotelträumen zwischen Gletschern und Palmen, France; a significant section of the work is dedicated to hotel
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presents yet more ‘hotels with turrets and fretwork’ which have been A decade or so later, in 1988, in her degree dissertation at the an initial overview dedicated to the history of Swiss tourism and buildings. In the same year an illustrated book compared the
rehabilitated by the post-war purification drive in the minimalist University of Lausanne, Anne Wyssbrod presented the first and hotel architecture between 1830 and 1920, including a study of hotels and tourist facilities of the French Riviera to those built
spirit of the period (fig. 21). 28 seminal account of the development of hotel construction in the tourist centres on Lake Geneva, in Thoune, Lake Lucerne and around Lake Geneva in France and Switzerland. In 1988, the
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While this battle was being waged against the historic the nineteenth century, focusing on Montreux. Her systematic Valais. A follow-up volume appeared two years later under the title Musée Carnavalet made a valuable contribution to the history of
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edifices of the nineteenth century, new efficiently managed and investigation of the hotel architecture of Switzerland’s ‘hotel city par Hotelpaläste zwischen Traum und Wirklichkeit, focusing on the history the hotel sector with its exhibition catalogue Du Palais au Palace
rationalised hotel buildings were proving a great success. The chain excellence’ was a major landmark in the story of the rediscovery of of the tourist regions in Ticino, Lake Constance and Grisons. – Des Grands Hôtels de voyageurs à Paris au xix siècle, a work which
e
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founded by Conrad Nicholson Hilton Cisco in Texas pointed this architectural type. At almost the same time, Isabelle Rucki These two publications were produced as part of a research project analyses the development of the most important hotel buildings
Montreux – the church. Territet – Hôtel des Alpes. A beautiful old building Lauenen. Locarno, Hôtel Reber before and after the renovations.
and an ugly modern construction on the shores of Lake Geneva.

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