Gresham-palota, Budapest

Gresham Palace is the grand building before you, now home to the Four Seasons Hotel Budapest Gresham Palace. Its present form was completed in 1906 as offices and apartments, and the building opened in 1907. Zsigmond Quittner, József Vágó and László Vágó designed it in the Hungarian Art Nouveau tradition.

The building began as the Budapest headquarters of the London Gresham Life Assurance Company, which chose this site for a more imposing foreign base. Its earlier occupant, Nákó House, had stood here since 1827. After wartime barracks use and a period divided into flats, the palace underwent an extensive restoration.

The renewed hotel opened in 2004, with historic stairways, stained glass, mosaics, ironwork and winter gardens brought back into the building. Look at the entrance details and the patterned surfaces: they belong to a palace that still preserves its original decorative character while serving as a luxury hotel beside the Danube.