Hotel Victoria

The stately hotel, built in the 19th century, greatly changed by several rebuilds, complemented by additionally purchased property, was rehabilitated, expanded and developed into a hotel facility offering optimal operating conditions. The basic substance of the old building with its 66 hotel rooms was retained and placed on an equal footing in terms of volume with the neighboring buildings by resizing the attic. The simple exposed concrete structure along Heumattstrasse replaces the demolished buildings, incorporates 41 additional rooms and closes the court periphery. The court between the old and the new hotel wing has been designed on the first floor as an organic garden landscape.

The building on Centralbahnplatz square was completely renovated. The new access route on the court side towers above the attic level, closing with the “lounge above the roofs of Basel”. On the redesigned ground floor, the building with its access paths opens onto the hotel, restaurant and store of the busy urban square. Multi-level, light-flooded rooms extend these semi-public areas into the first floor and the first underground level. A slightly raised café terrace is located in front of the restaurant. It continues the tradition of the street cafés of the neighboring hotels. The existing, plastered, punctuated facade with thick window jambs is limited in the building base section and at the attic level by an exposed concrete and glass strip. In these strips, the gray hues of the exposed concrete and the anthracite window frames interact with the fine green hue of the panes. Thanks to the delicate yellow color of the plastered surface and the light gray color of the window jambs, the punctuated facade loses some of its heaviness, simplicity and seriousness.

The new building on Heumattstrasse closes the block periphery and blends with the peripheral structures through the adjustment of the volume. At the street level are the delivery areas for the store and the hotel. Above this are two room levels and an attic level with four junior suites. The delivery zone on the ground floor is closed by semi-transparent sliding gates. The structure has a compact and unified appearance, despite the large opening. The hotel room, with its frameless window flush with the facade and a recessed ventilation wing, acts as a serial element in the outer carcass. The mural attic level completes the top facade with its four recessed loggias, interpreting the neighboring steep roofs with their dormer windows.