History

Mr. Josef Steiner, a hotelier who had trained in England and Switzerland, bought a plot of land next to the Municipal House (Obecní dům) to answer 1920s Prague's shortage of modern hotels. Architect František Malypetr and a team of experts designed an exclusive European-class building, and the Grand Hôtel Steiner opened on 25 February 1927. The construction relied on riveted iron columns, which made it possible to leave out central supporting walls; the building rose six storeys and held about 100 rooms. The lobby, furnished in English Art Deco style with marble floors, wooden cassette ceilings and leather chairs before a fireplace, became — together with its French restaurant — a meeting place for Prague's high society through the 1920s and 1930s. In the basement Malypetr created the Boccaccio, a Rococo-revival dancing hall with lavish stucco, gilt elements and traditional Czech crystal, named after Giovanni Boccaccio. The Grand Hôtel Steiner survived the Second World War without harm. After the Communist takeover of February 1948, Steiner offered the hotel to the Communist Party; it was renamed Hotel Praha and for some four decades served as the main catering provider for the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The 1989 Velvet Revolution saved the building from decline; it was returned to the Steiner family, who sold it, and after roughly eleven months of major reconstruction it reopened on 1 October 1993 as the Grand Hotel Bohemia, with the Boccaccio ballroom completely restored.