Former Palace Hotel, nowadays the Administrative Pavilion of Craiova City Hall
About
The building in which the secondary headquarters of Craiova City Hall are located, on A. I. Cuza Street, at no. 1, dates from 1900-1905 and is on the list of historical monuments.
It was built according to the plans of architect Otto Hesselmann.
According to archive records, the building was designed from the very beginning to have two purposes.
Here, a hotel, but also a bank office, were supposed to operate.
To fulfill the first purpose, the Palace Hotel was designed in a manner specific to most of the early 20th century hotels in Bucharest.
As in the capital, the hotel was positioned on a street corner, with two main facades and entrances and apartments located right on the corner of the building.
The double utility of the building can be seen on the inside. Architects talk about a special concept of "building inside the building" that can be noticed as soon as you enter the building. The ground floor and the first floor have been fitted with a large indoor hall and many counters to serve as bank office.
On the second, third and attic floors are the apartments where the guests of the Palace Hotel were accommodated.
The most interesting element of interior decoration is the main skylight. Located on the first floor, it functions as a "light garden", according to the specialists. The building also had many beautiful paintings and wainscots, especially in the hotel rooms, but they have deteriorated over time.
Five earthquakes have passed over this building, beginning with the one in 1908 and ending with the one fromt the 1990s. They have seriously affected the building’s resistance structure. Despite the fact that the traces of time can be easily observed everywhere in the building, local authorities say that no consolidation work has been done, not even after the earthquake of 1977.
Source: https://audiotravelguide.ro/hotel-palace-craiova/
Photo: https://audiotravelguide.ro/hotel-palace-craiova/; www.monumenteoltenia.ro
