Projected as the House of the Central Committee of the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia, the building was originally envisioned as the "largest congress center in the Balkans". Construction was part of the vast program of the Youth work actions and began in the summer of 1949. Some 15 youth brigades, with 18,000 people, were employed at the construction site but the works ceased in November 1950.
Hotel
After the idea of the congress center was abandoned, architect Dragiša Brašovan revised the plans and adapted the structure as the highrise hotel. Construction works were continued in 1954 and, though they were finalized in 1958, the hotel was opened for guests on 20 August 1957. The building was declared a cultural monument in 2001. In 2002 a major fire broke out at the hotel, completely destroying the two last floors. The rest of the hotel, however, remained open until 2008.
music: Igor Stravinsky, Louis Armstrong, who was awaited by numerous fans for hours, but he would slip through the back doors.
Celebrating re-opening of the hotel and the 55th anniversary, an exhibition was held in the renovated hotel in October 2012 and a monograph on the hotel's history, "History of the five stars" was published. Among other data, it contains photos of celebrity guests and anecdotes on their time in Metropol.
2008-2012 reconstruction
In 2006, the hotel was purchased by the "Sheraton Sofia Hotel Balkan" for 27,4 million euros. The complete reconstruction of the edifice, worth over 40 million euros, began in 2008 and was halted twice in the next 4 years. No work has been done at all from 2009 to September 2011 with the various reasons given: European debt crisis, bad relations within the family company which acquired the hotel but the unofficial stories that the Metropol has been resold also circulated. In 2011 the owners promised that the works will be finished in 2012. Additional pressure were the newly adopted penalties for the investors who do not "beautify edifices in the city's priority touristic zones" by June 2013. Penalty amount by the law, colloquially called "the tax on ugliness", was set at 2 million euros. The hotel was temporarily opened in June 2012 as the five-star venue under the name Metropol Palace. It began to receive guests on 9 September 2012 while some works remained in progress until the end of the year. On 15 October 2012 it was announced that the Metropol Palace officially joined the Starwood hotels chain, under the Luxury Collection brand-category. The architecture bureau DOMAA, situated in Belgrade, was in charge for the reconstruction of the hotel Metropol Palace. The chief architect and the author of the reconstruction was architect Miodrag Trpkovic, job captain - architect Jasmina Djordjevic and assistant to the job captain was architect Srdjan Gavrilovic. Main arch. technitian was Dragana Dimitrijevic.
Architecture
The Metropol is known for its specific, white façade, the large stained glass window and the mosaic. Due to the protection as the cultural monument, they were not to be changed during the reconstruction but they were fully restored. In front of the hotel is the fountain with the sculpture "The girl takes a shower". The lobby has marbled floor and a large wall painting made from the inlayed pieces of differently colored wood. It was especially ordered by Brašovan for the hotel in 1956. The hotel had a total floor area of which was enlarged to after the 2012 reconstruction. The reconstructed hotel has several restaurants, spa, fitness center, sauna, steambath, massage center, gym and the meeting halls with the capacity of 1,000 guests. An underground, three-level garage with 100 parking spots was built so as the bar on the hotel's flat roof. There are 199 rooms, 130 in the main body of the building while 69 rooms and 40 suites are in the so-called annex, the eastern extension. The suites include the presidential and the royal ones.
