Park Hyatt Vienna

The cashier's hall still has its marble columns and its coffered ceiling, but the tellers' counters are gone and the room now serves dinner. Park Hyatt Vienna occupies the former headquarters of the Österreichische Länderbank on Am Hof, one of the oldest squares in the city, and most of what makes the hotel memorable was left there by the bank.

History

The Länderbank built its head office between 1913 and 1915 to designs by Ernst von Gotthilf and Alexander Neumann, the partnership responsible for several of Vienna's late-imperial financial palaces. The bank occupied the building for most of the century, through its merger into Bank Austria, and vacated it in the 2000s. The Signa group then bought the block and the surrounding streets to create the Goldenes Quartier, a precinct of fashion houses around Tuchlauben and Bognergasse, with the hotel as its anchor. After a four-year conversion the Park Hyatt opened on 1 June 2014, the brand's first in Austria.

Architecture and design

The exterior is a protected monument in the late historicist style, with a rusticated base, giant pilasters and a corner on Am Hof facing the Mariensäule. The conversion kept the ceremonial rooms: the entrance hall with its staircase, the director's offices on the first floor, the cashier's hall and the vaults in the basement. New interiors throughout are by the Dutch firm FG stijl, in a palette of grey, bronze and dark wood that defers to the original stone and plaster. Ceilings are high everywhere, a legacy of the bank, and the corridors are wider than any new hotel would allow.

Rooms and suites

The 143 rooms and suites are among the largest in Vienna, starting around thirty-five square metres, with marble bathrooms, deep tubs and separate showers. The suites on the piano nobile occupy former boardrooms with original panelling and plaster; the Presidential Suite has a wrap-around position on the corner of the square. Windows look either on to Am Hof or into a quiet inner courtyard.

Dining

The Bank Brasserie & Bar fills the old cashier's hall under the glass and coffered ceiling, with an open kitchen and a menu of Austrian classics and grill. The Living Room, with a fireplace, serves breakfast and afternoon tea, and the Pearl bar occupies the former bank cashier's cage. The Café Am Hof opens on to the square in summer.

Wellness

The Arany Spa, named after the Hungarian word for gold, sits in the basement where the bank kept its reserves. The 15-metre pool is lined in gold-coloured tile and set within the old vault, with the original steel door preserved at the entrance. There are saunas, a steam room, treatment rooms and a fitness centre alongside.

Weddings and events

The first floor holds the hotel's event rooms, including the Grand Salon, a former boardroom with its original wood panelling and chandelier, used for weddings, dinners and launches for up to a couple of hundred guests, together with a series of smaller boardrooms and salons. Civil ceremonies can be arranged in the salons, and the Bank hall takes receptions after hours. The hotel is used for board meetings and incentive groups drawn by the location and by the size of its rooms.

Location

Am Hof is in the first district, within the Ring, two minutes on foot from the Graben and the Kohlmarkt and five from the Hofburg and St Stephen's Cathedral. Herrengasse station on the U3 is at the corner of the square; Wien Hauptbahnhof is fifteen minutes by taxi or U-Bahn and Vienna airport about thirty minutes by road or by the City Airport Train to Wien Mitte. For a luxury hotel in Vienna, the Park Hyatt has one of the most central addresses available.