Hotel Intercontinental

The famous Intercontinental Hotel has been a part of Pařížská Street for fifty years. This nine-story reinforced concrete structure came into being through an unusual collaboration between Czechoslovakia and the American hotel chain IHG, a subsidiary of Pan Am Airlines, which planned to build a luxury hotel specifically for its customers. The design was carried out by the prominent Prague-based studio Epsilon, led by Karel Filsak. The hotel itself is a massive solitary building devoid of excessive ornamentation, with an irregular rhythm of vertical bands on the facade, alternating between concrete “blades,” glass window strips, and colorful tile cladding reminiscent of the roofs of the Old Town. In contrast, the interiors were filled with rare works of art and accessories by top artists such as Stanislav Libenský, René Roubíček, and graphic designer Jiří Rathouský, who created the hotel’s logo. In 2021, the building unsuccessfully applied for cultural monument status and is currently undergoing renovation under the direction of the architectural studio TaK Architects.