Hotel Park is one of a series of accommodation facilities built in the High Tatras in the late 1960s with the aim of increasing lodging capacity ahead of the planned World Championships in Nordic skiing disciplines. During the championship, the hotel hosted foreign journalists and was therefore equipped with a small press center.
The building was constructed between 1966 and 1969 on the site of the demolished original Hotel Park in Horný Smokovec. Czech architects from the State Institute for Commercial Design in Brno – Igor Svoboda and Růžena Žertová – developed a brilliant spatial concept. Facing the Cesta slobody (Freedom Road), they oriented a two-storey social and communal section in a horizontal mass, while the accommodation section, designed as an open ring, was situated in a quieter location on the edge of a coniferous forest. The ring structure was elevated on columns, allowing the architects to respond to the sloping terrain while enabling the exterior space to flow seamlessly into the inner atrium. Within the ring, they also created a cut-out segment that brought light into the atrium and opened up a direct view of Lomnický štít.
The hotel corridors were oriented towards the glazed atrium, transforming this typically utilitarian space into a bright internal passage, similar to the approach used by Ivan Matušík in the design of the spa house in Bojnice.
The accommodation section of the hotel was originally clad in wood, while the communal section featured split stone cladding – Ždiar travertine. The artistic aspect of the hotel was complemented by four works by sculptor Imrich Vanek, including an exterior sculpture, two ceramic reliefs in the reception area, and a wall relief in the restaurant and café, whose elegant interior was originally based on a combination of white and gold. During its operation, the hotel underwent several significant reconstructions and extensions that undermined nearly all the values of its original architectural design.
author of the description: Monika Bočková
Bibliography:
HEIMANN, Petr: Park hotel Nový Smokovec. Architektura ČSR 1971, roč. 30, č. 6, s. 263 – 265.
KRIVOŠOVÁ, Jana - LUKÁČOVÁ, Elena: Premeny súčasnej architektúry Slovenska. Bratislava: Alfa, 1990, s. 123-124.
KUSÝ, Martin: Hotelové stavby na Slovensku. Projekt 1974, roč. 16, č. 9, s. 4 – 9.
BAHNA, Ján: Čo nám navrhli českí architekti v oblasti občianskej výstavby. Projekt 1980, roč. 22, č. 8, s. 26 – 30.
DULLA, Matúš – MORAVČÍKOVÁ, Henrieta: Architektúra Slovenska v 20. storočí. Bratislava, Slovart 2002. 512 s., tu s. 430.
