The George Hotel is a representative Lviv hotel built in 1899-1901 on an irregular quadrilateral ground plan. It was built according to a design by the Viennese bureau Fellner & Helmer (Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Helmer) in cooperation with Lviv architects Jan (Ivan) Levynskyi and Julian Cybulski, who slightly modified the 1898 design. It was built on the site of a classicist, three-storey hotel called the Russian Hotel, which opened in 1811 and was demolished in 1899. Before that, still at the end of the 18th century, there was an inn on the site. The new hotel, which opened on 8 January 1901, offered guests 93 rooms, 32 of which were luxury suites. It had 24-hour hot and cold water, central heating, telephone and electric lifts.

The neo-Renaissance style, characteristic of Viennese architects, is not clear in the body of the hotel today due to repeated alterations and extensions. Elements of Art Nouveau and Art déco (1930s interiors) have been superimposed on the original architectural style. The main façade of the monumental mass, covered with a high mansard roof, is accentuated on the axis by a risalit with a central entrance and an attic topped with a rectangular relief of St. George slaying a dragon by one of the leading Lviv sculptors at the turn of the century - Antoni Popel (1865-1910). In the niches of the side facades stand four allegorical figures: Europe, Asia, Africa and America by Lviv Polytechnic lecturer Leonardo Marconi with the collaboration of Antoni Popiel. The first floor with a balcony balustrade has large rectangular windows, while the upper floors have arched windows. The south elevation has two risalits with a semi-circular bay window between them. The interior layout of the hotel is mostly corridor-based with a two-sided room layout. The interior on the first floor includes a large lobby with entrances to the restaurant and office spaces. The lobby has preserved antique stucco, the staircase is made of marble with an Art Nouveau balustrade and the fireplaces date from 1900. The second and third floors have biforias with semi-columns with Corinthian and Tuscan capitals.

The George Hotel has had many owners over the last 120 years. It is named after the first of these, the Bavarian merchant Georg Hoffman, who purchased the hotel in 1816. He placed his initials on a section of the building's attic. Circa. 1875 the name of the hotel was changed to "Georges Hoffman", later the hotel was called "George". During this period, the Hoffman family carried out several renovations and alterations, giving the hotel one main entrance and a series of outbuildings, enclosing the inner courtyard with a ring. The last owner from the Hoffman family was Maria Hoffman. In 1906, the building became the property of the Towarzystwo Wzajemnych Ubezpieczeń. In the same year, the architect Lewiński added the third and fourth floors over the part of the building facing south, and engineer Włodzimierz Podhorodecki reconstructed the roofing of the main part of the building.

The George Hotel quickly became the most fashionable place in Lviv. The comforts available there were valued, and the hotel restaurant was mentioned as first-class in all tourist guides. At the beginning of the 20th century, the restaurant was managed by the founder of the famous artistic café "Paon" at Szpitalna 38 in Krakow, Ferdynand Turlinski. When he went bankrupt in 1901, he moved to Lviv, where he was briefly associated with the George Hotel. He was nicknamed the "Polish Ragueneau", referring to the restaurateur from the comedy Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand. The hotel's restaurant served exquisite dishes to satisfy the tastes of the most discriminating gourmets - from French-style mutton, through pasties in conchs of brains, to classics in the form of sausages and giblets. All sorts of rauts and receptions were held here, and residents of Lviv - especially members of the intellectual and artistic elite - would drop in for coffee, breakfast or lunch. In turn, the first floor housed shops and various services. From 1910 to 1912, it housed Alfred Altenberg's bookshop, and later, until 1920, the publishing house "G. Altenberg, H. Seyfarth, E. Wende and Co.".

In the 1920s "George" became the property of the Pension Company. At the end of the decade, a major reconstruction of the interior layout took place and a fifth storey was created on the south elevation. Further alterations took place every few years. In 1928, renovation of the dining halls took place, the effects of which were described as follows in the "Dziennik Lwowski" of 29 March of that year:

"It should be noted with appreciation that the George Hotel has embarked on a complete reconstruction of its dining rooms. The new hall, paved with marble slabs and decorated with a colonnade in the style of a modernised Alhambra, presents itself very pleasingly. Undoubtedly, there may be some reservations about the decorative side, even lending itself to professional judgement, but the hall nevertheless makes a generally European appearance. The decorations are cream and pink, the balcony with the orchestra is discreetly hidden upstairs, the lighting is discreet, perhaps even too discreet, as some guests want to see exactly the whole 'battlefield' on the table. In any case, Lvov is getting a new venue of distinction to boast of'.

In 1932, in turn, the hotel café was redesigned in the Art déco style according to the project of architect Tadeusz Wróbel (1886-1974). It is worth mentioning that Wróbel was a graduate of the local polytechnic, president of the Lvov Circle of Polish Architects, in the period in question he ran a design office in Lvov together with Leopold Marcin Karasiński, and after the war and displacement he co-founded the Faculty of Building and Architecture at the polytechnic in Wrocław. In 1940, the hotel was renamed "Lviv" and later incorporated into the Intourist chain. Further restoration work took place in the last years of the war and in the post-war period.

During the Second Polish Republic, politicians and dignitaries stayed at the hotel, and conferences, conventions of various associations or speeches and lectures were organised here. Stanisław Wasylewski (1885-1953), a Polish essayist, literary critic, translator and editor associated with Lviv for many years, called the George Hotel "the main furniture in the city's salon". It was here that ceremonial banquets were held in 1848, during the "Spring of Nations". Here, during the January Uprising, the insurgent Committee of Eastern Galicia held office, collecting contributions and weapons and sending out armed troops. This is where the Russians held a dozen or so hostages under military guard in September 1914 - councillors, clergymen or professors, who were supposed to guarantee peace in the city during the march of the troops. As we read in the book 293 days of Russian rule in Lviv (3 September 1914-22 June 1915) by Bohdan Janusz:

"In the evening of the same day (3. September), Vice President Rutowski paid a visit to Commander von Rode and presented him with a list; of hostages. [...] These hostages were ordered by von Rode to report the following day at 8 a.m. at the Georgea Hotel, where 16 rooms, including maintenance, had been rented for them. They will not be allowed to leave the hotel for 2-3 days, and a military patrol will be standing in front of the hotel. After only these formalities have been completed, there will be a march of troops through the city to the sound of military music."

It was here that the cream of the city's artistic community gathered between the wars, and it was here, in the hotel restaurant, that the mathematicians of the so-called Lvov school solved their famous problems, writing them down on one of the restaurant tables (they could only be wiped off after they had been solved) and offering a prize for a correct answer, which was sometimes caviar or dinner in the restaurant - and once even a live goose. This very strange prize was offered in the summer of 1936 by Stanisław Mazur for solving the problem he had posed. The Swedish mathematician Per Enflo, who was then working at the University of Berkeley, received the goose in Warsaw in 1972.

This hotel, reputed to be the most exquisite and distinguished, was frequented by eminent guests, such as Emperor Franz Joseph, General Józef Bem and the Chief Executive Józef Piłsudski (who arrived in Lwów on 3 March 1916 straight from the front and received a delegation of the Supreme National Committee at the hotel). Honoré de Balzac stayed at the hotel twice, visiting Berdyczów, where his beloved, and since 1850 his wife, Ewelina Hańska, lived. The composers Ferenc Liszt and Maurice Ravel, the writers Władysław Reymont and Ethel Voynich, the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre or the Shah of Iran of the Kajur dynasty, Muzaffer Eddin, stayed here. The hotel also hosted the famous Polish singer and actor - Jan Kiepura, who actually sang from the hotel balcony, although not exactly "Brunettes, Blondes", contrary to popular legend. On 8 September 1931, when Kiepura was a guest at the hotel, crowds of Lviv residents held an ovation in front of the building, and the singer's ardent fans did not disperse for a long time yet, although the artist had already left for his concert.

During the Soviet period, the hotel continued to be popular with domestic and foreign guests, and after independence it regained its previously popularised name "Georges". To this day it remains a well-known, though no longer so popular and exclusive, place on the map of Lviv.

Location: 1 Mickiewicz Square, Lviv, Ukraine