Location Moscow, Russia Floor count 15 Number of rooms 180 | Management Four Seasons Hotels Architect Alexey Shchusev | |
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Opening 1935 (original building), October 30, 2014 (current building) | ||
The Four Seasons Hotel Moscow is a modern luxury hotel, opening on October 30, 2014, with a facade that replicates the historic Hotel Moskva, which previously stood on the same location on Manezhnaya Square in the Tverskoy District, central Moscow, Russia. It is located near Red Square, and in close proximity to the old City Hall.
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Old building
The Hotel Moskva was constructed from 1932 until 1938, opening as a hotel in December 1935. Designed by Alexey Shchusev, it was built to be one of Moscow's finest hotels and was lavishly detailed with works of art and mosaics by some of the finest artists of the Soviet Union.
The original hotel was notable for its use of two different designs for the wings off the central structure. The most popular (possibly apocryphal) explanation is that Shchusev submitted to Stalin a single drawing of the façade, with one half showing one design, and the other half a different designs for the wings of the building. However, Stalin put his signature exactly in the middle of the drawing, likely not observing the two choices. Afraid of informing Stalin that he had failed to select a design, the decision was made to simply constructed one wing of each on either side of the building. One included large windows and a more ornate façade, while the other maintained smaller windows and the simpler details of the rest of the hotel's façade. The lobby of the original hotel contained an entrance to the Moscow Metro Okhotny Ryad station. The label of Stolichnaya vodka features a line drawing of the old hotel. The hotel was expanded to fill the block with a 6-story wing facing Revolution Square, in 1977, for the 60th Anniversary of the October Revolution.
New building
The Hotel Moskva was demolished in 2004 and replaced with a modern reproduction, with underground parking and other features which were not available in the 1930s. The northeastern portion of the complex, facing Revolution Square, was built on the site of the demolished 1977 wing. Housing offices and the shopping center, Fashion Season, it opened in 2012. The hotel, on the site of the 1935 building, replicates the iconic facade, following Shchusev's exterior plans as accurately as possible. It opened on October 30, 2014 as the Four Seasons Hotel Moscow.
Major Russian businessman Alexey Khotin is reported to possess the hotel nowadays.