page_title: Kosančićev Venac
section_title: Hôtel Palace
hierarchical_section_title: Kosančićev Venac / Features / Hôtel Palace
caption_attribution_description: Српски / srpski: Косанчићев венац - споменик This is a photo of Cultural Heritage site of Serbia number ПКИЦ 6
context_page_description: Kosančićev Venac is an urban neighborhood of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. It is located in Belgrade's municipality of Stari Grad. It has been described as the most valuable and most representative veduta of Belgrade.
context_section_description: Hotel Palace is located in Topličin Venac, eastern extension of the neighborhood, next to the Park Proleće. Construction began in 1921. The six-floor building was open on 12 May 1923 and at the time it was "the most beautiful and most modern hotel in the entire kingdom (Yugoslavia), and by the experts' judgment, it had no match in the entire Balkans". Architect and owner Leon Talvi (1880-1969) said that, even though he was projecting a business object, he was guided by the aesthetic reasons. On the fifth floor there was an artistic gallery which consisted of 5 salons and a highly pricey collection made from the works of Italian, French, Russian and Yugoslav painters. The hotel had luxurious apartments, a theatre (variety show) and cinema hall, dancing hall, three elevators, central heating, hot water, icehouse, garage, bus parking lot, etc. Pre-war hotel is described today as "Europe before European Union".
  After it was finished, for a while it was the tallest building in Belgrade. Talvi designed it in the eclectic style, with the elements of Neo Baroque. Façade is known for its small balconies with the wrought iron railings and the Mansard roof. On the Maršala Birjuzova Street side, façade is ornamented with various coats of arms. First ever recorded jazz performance in Belgrade was held in the hotel's bar. Palace had its own carriage service, American Bar for reading and smoking and regular concerts at 17:00. Hotel achieved certain notoriety in 1929 when it became known as the gathering place of the spies. On 15 October 1929 a shootout between foreign agents occurred in hotel, while the hotel manager fled abroad. That same year, a central dome was damaged in the fire.
  After a financial collapse in the 1930s, Talvi sold the hotel to Đura Bogdanović, and eventually emigrated to Israel. After World War II began in 1939, but before it spread to Yugoslavia in 1941, the Palace was sold in 1940 to the Government of France. They adapted it into the French Cultural Center, which was to boost the cultural, scientific and technical cooperation between two countries. The center was reopened by the French author Georges Duhamel. Right after the occupation, in April 1941 German Wehrmacht command moved in and all the highest officers lived in the apartments. Germans looted all the works of art from the hotel. From 1945 Palace was again a French Cultural Center, until 1948 when Yugoslav government traded the Union Palace building in Knez Mihailova Street, where the French Cultural Center is still located today, for Hotel Palace.
  Hotel was first ceded to the Finance ministry which used it to accommodate their clerks. Foreign ministry than took it over for the foreign guests, diplomats and visitors. Still, the hotel was on the verge of bankruptcy by 1957 when it became part of the Belgrade's School for Tourism and Hospitality, founded in 1938 and the largest one in Serbia. Hotel was revitalized and became especially popular among the athletes and served as sports' quarantine. The marble ground floor was eventually reconstructed to resemble the pre-war appearance, with the stone fountain with the paintings by Kosta Bradić (1927-2014), as the original paintings disappeared long time ago.
  Well known historical figures which stayed in the hotel include Rabindranat Tagore, Mikhail Gorbachev and Geraldine Chaplin. Today, Hotel Palace is a 4 star hotel with 86 units in total (33 one-bed rooms, 38 two-bed rooms, 15 apartments).
caption: Obelisk in the park, dedicated to the Non-Aligned Movement
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A460", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2008:01:27 12:14:54", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image Tag 0x1001": "2592", "Image Tag 0x1002": "1944", "Image ExifOffset": "266", "Image CustomRendered": "Normal", "Image ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "Image WhiteBalance": "Auto", "Image DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "Image SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3220", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "2798", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/200", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:01:27 12:14:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:01:27 12:14:54", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "3", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "245/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/8", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "9771/1000", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1944", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2592", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "1296000/97", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "388800/29", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera"}