Metropol Palace

Bulevar kralja Aleksandra runs east from the Serbian parliament past Tašmajdan park, and at number 69 a long modernist block of pale stone stands back from the road behind a forecourt. Dragiša Brašovan designed it in the 1950s, and the Metropol Palace opened in 1957 as the hotel in which Tito's Yugoslavia received the world.

History

Brašovan, the architect of Belgrade's Air Force Command building and of the Novi Sad provincial government, was commissioned after the war to give the capital a hotel on the scale of its new ambitions. The Metropol opened in 1957, and in September 1961 it housed the heads of state and delegations of the first summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, held in Belgrade. The guest book of the following decades is the one the hotel still quotes: Alfred Hitchcock, Elizabeth Taylor, Sophia Loren, Che Guevara and the astronauts of Apollo 11 on their world tour.

The hotel declined with Yugoslavia in the 1990s. It closed in 2007 for a complete reconstruction behind the protected facade and reopened in 2012 as Metropol Palace, a Luxury Collection Hotel, under Starwood, whose brands passed to Marriott International in 2016. The building is listed as a cultural monument of the city of Belgrade.

Architecture and design

Brašovan's building is a horizontal slab of nine storeys with a stone-clad front, continuous bands of windows and a cantilevered entrance canopy, one of the clearest pieces of post-war modernism in Belgrade. The reconstruction kept the facade and the proportions of the lobby and rebuilt everything behind. Interiors are contemporary with references to the 1950s: walnut, brass, terrazzo and photographs of the hotel's early guests in the corridors. The rooftop was opened up for a pool and a bar with a view over Tašmajdan and the city.

Rooms and suites

The hotel has 236 rooms and suites over its upper floors, many of them facing the park across the boulevard. The suites on the top floors have terraces, and the largest, the presidential suite, occupies a corner of the building. Rooms are furnished in a restrained contemporary style with large bathrooms in stone.

Dining

The main restaurant and its terrace onto the forecourt serve breakfast and an all-day menu with Serbian and Mediterranean dishes. The rooftop restaurant and bar, open in the warmer months, has the view the hotel is now visited for, across the park to St Mark's church and the parliament dome. A lobby bar with a cigar room serves through the evening.

Wellness

The spa in the lower floors has an indoor pool, saunas and steam rooms, a fitness centre and treatment rooms. The rooftop pool, open in summer, is the only one of its kind among Belgrade's luxury hotels and is the hotel's most photographed feature.

Weddings and events

The Metropol Palace has a ballroom and a set of conference rooms on its lower floors and is one of the principal venues for congresses, state dinners and society weddings in Belgrade. The ballroom hosts wedding dinners and galas, with the rooftop used for receptions in summer. Meetings use the smaller rooms, and the hotel's position beside the parliament and the government quarter makes it the default address for official delegations.

Location

The address is Bulevar kralja Aleksandra 69, in the Palilula municipality, opposite Tašmajdan park and St Mark's church, 500 metres from the National Assembly. Terazije and Knez Mihailova, the main pedestrian street, are 15 minutes on foot. Belgrade Nikola Tesla airport is about 30 minutes by road, and Belgrade Centre railway station, Prokop, about ten minutes by taxi. For a luxury hotel in Belgrade it has the most central park-side position in the city, and the only listed modernist building among its peers.