Queen's Astoria Design Hotel

Queen's Astoria Design Hotel
Former names Hotel Astoria (1937-2009)
General information
Location Savski Venac, Belgrade, Serbia
Address 1 Milovana Milovanovića Street
Belgrade 11000
Opening 1937
Technical details
Floor count 5
Design and construction
Architect Ivan Savković
Other information
Number of rooms 85
Website
Queen's Astoria Design Hotel

Queen's Astoria Design Hotel (originally known as Hotel Astoria) is a four star hotel in Belgrade, Serbia.

Opened in 1937 in the capital of Kingdom of Yugoslavia, several years before the country was invaded and dismembered by Nazi Germany, Hotel Astoria was the property of Đura S. Ninković, well-known Belgrade hotelier. Following Ninković's death in 1940, the hotel was inherited by his surviving family, continuing under management of his wife Jelena and their two children — son Milorad Ninković and daughter Ljubina "Nina" Savković.

At the end of World War II, the hotel got nationalized in the newly established, communist-run FPR Yugoslavia. The state (including its successor states) ran the hotel through a state-owned entity DHUTP Astoria for the following sixty years.

On 6 March 2009, the hotel was controversially re-privatized via a tender auction organized by the Serbian government's privatization agency, which accepted the joint €2.4 million bid by Progres AB and Montenegro Premier companies. The new owners closed the hotel for renovation in mid 2009, before re-opening in late November 2010 under a modified name Queen's Astoria Design Hotel.

Location

Located at 1 Milovana Milovanovića Street, in the Belgrade municipality of Savski Venac, Queen's Astoria Design Hotel is in the near-vicinity of the city's Main Railway Station as well as its main bus terminal.

History

Hotel Astoria's construction was financed by Đura S. Ninković[1] who already owned hotel properties around the city such as the Branislav Kojić-designed Hotel Pošta that opened in 1930 on the opposite side of Savski Trg.[2] For Hotel Astoria, which was envisioned as a bigger hotel, Ninković commissioned the building design to his own son-in-law, architect Ivan Savković[3] who later in 1950 went on to co-design the post-World War II building at 14 King Milan Street to house the PR Serbia Assembly. The newly built hotel became one of the first modernist buildings in Belgrade with Streamline Moderne elements, applying a minimalist façade design and relying on simple geometric lines rather than ornate decorations. The building has since been given the status as a significant architectural milestone in Serbian architecture.

Hotel Astoria in 1938 as seen from the Milovana Milovanovića Street.

Basing its business model on the increasing amount of business travel in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia's developing economy, the hotel was a family-run enterprise with approximately 80 guest rooms, a restaurant, bar, and purpose-built architect's studio for the owner Ninković's son-in-law, architect Savković. The hotel stretches over 3,600m2 and is located in central Belgrade next to the main railway station.

Đura S. Ninković died in November 1940, and his wife Jelena, son, Milorad Ninković, and daughter, Nina Savković inherited the hotel and continued running the business.

Hotel Astoria in 1938 (second building on the right) as seen from the Sava Square.

With the Nazi German invasion of the Yugoslav kingdom on 6 April 1941, the hotel was confiscated and used for the Wehrmacht's military purposes. At the end of the war, the Ninković-Savković family got the hotel back, albeit briefly.[4]

Nationalization

In 1948, the hotel was forcibly nationalized by the communist authorities of FPR Yugoslavia[5] with a member of OZNA showing up at the premises and informing the owners, members of Ninković and Savković families, that they won't be living there any longer.[6] Astoria began to be run as a government-owned hotel, officially having the status of a 'socially owned concern,' until 2009.

Controversial re-privatization and ownership dispute

In March 2009, with the Serbian government privatization agency's announcement of a tender auction in order to re-privatize Hotel Astoria, the original pre-nationalization owners, members of the Ninković family, staged a protest by symbolically occupying the property, entering it on 3 March at 11am.[7] Led by Đurđe Ninković, son of the hotel's owner Milorad Ninković, they occupied the hotel from March 3rd until March 30th employing the principles of direct action, unhappy at seeing the family property sold by the Serbian government without having passed a denationalization law or a restitution law for property seized by the FPR/SFR Yugoslavia communist regime. Instead, the government based the tender auction on the current privatization law, setting the hotel's initial price at €1.2 million.

The hotel occupation received significant media coverage, contributing to the public debate regarding the Serbian government's failure to compensate owners for property forcibly seized by the communists.[6][8][9][10][11][12]

Regardless, the tender auction went ahead as planned on 6 March and the hotel got re-privatized via Serbian government privatization agency selling it for RSD230 million (~€2.4 million) to the Mladenovac-based company Progres a.d. and the Podgorica-based company Montenegro Premier.[13][14] Under the purchasing agreement, the new owner also took on an obligation of investing RSD61.6 million into the property.[13]

On 9 March, the Politika daily published an op-ed commentary by Đurđe Ninković who disputed the Serbian government's inherited legal basis to handle Hotel Astoria, invoking a communist era law ('law on nationalization of leased buildings and construction land for commercial exploitation') that came into effect on 1 January 1959.[4] Among other things, he stated: "I invite everyone to try and derive their own conclusion about the fairness, legality, and finally, the price of the accepted bid at the auction that took place this past Friday. I only want to say that the hotel owners, represented by myself, would've never sold the hotel at that price. I remind everyone that Hotel Astoria was unlawfully nationalized and that the state never had a legal basis to make decisions about the hotel. Furthermore, all deadlines for the compensation payout because of nationalization are long overdue, and the last legally-set 50-year nationalization payout deadline expired on 1 January 2009 and since the state never paid the compensation in that timeframe it therefore forfeited the right to own that property, which it acquired illegally in the first place.... There are ongoing court cases in front of the Municipal Court and the Supreme Court. I'm going to invest all of my skill and experience, obtained over the 40 years of practicing law in Belgrade and London, in order to see justice done at those court cases by obtaining a court decision confirming the right of the Ninković family to run Hotel Astoria".[15]

The new owner closed Hotel Astoria in July 2009 for renovations. In late November 2010, it re-opened under a new name, Queen's Astoria Design Hotel. The hotel is still subject to a number of pending court cases disputing ownership.[16][17][18][19]

Historical significance

Hotel Astoria played a role in the development of democracy in Serbia, as it was the place where the Founding Committee of the Democratic Party held meetings in the law office of Mr Ninkovic (which the family had retained for use within the hotel building after nationalization) from the end of December 1989, in preparation for the re-establishment of the Democratic Party (DS). It was also the site where the Democratic Party's first political program was published in January 1990, and the site of the preparations for founding party conference held in February of that year. Following the founding party conference, the Democratic Party had its first central office in the hotel between February and October, 1990.[20]

Mr Ninkovic's office in Hotel Astoria was also the home of the first central office of the Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) for several months from July 1992, after a centre-right pro DEPOS coalition faction split from the Democratic Party to form the Democratic Party of Serbia (See Vox Iuris, December 2009).

References

  1. ↑ http://scindeks.ceon.rs/article.aspx?query=RELAAU%26and%2630561&page=0&sort=1&stype=0&backurl=%2fRelated.aspx%3fartaun%3d30561 summary article in English on the history of Hotel Astoria from Nasledje (Heritage) (No 13 pp 103-109, 2012) historical magazine
  2. ↑ http://scindeks.ceon.rs/article.aspx?artid=1450-605X0607219R Article in Journal of Architectural history Nasledje 2006, No. 7, pages 219-224
  3. ↑ http://scindeks.ceon.rs/article.aspx?query=RELAAU%26and%2630561&page=0&sort=1&stype=0&backurl=%2fRelated.aspx%3fartaun%3d30561 summary article in English on the history of Hotel Astoria from Nasledje (Heritage) (No 13 pp 103-109, 2012) historical magazine
  4. 1 2 Денационализација у сенци комунизма;Politika, 4 March 2009
  5. ↑ Article on Hotel Astoria - legal case study in Vox Iuris, Journal of legal theory and practice, 2009, No. 3-4
  6. 1 2 Protest vlasnika hotela "Astorija";B92, 3 March 2009
  7. ↑ Bivši vlasnici u hotelu "Astoria";RTS, 4 March 2009
  8. ↑ Bivši vlasnici traže hotel Astoriju;B92, 3 March 2009
  9. ↑ Bivši vlasnici zaposeli hotel "Astorija";mondo.rs, 3 March 2009
  10. ↑ Žele samo ono što im pripada;Glas javnosti, 4 March 2009
  11. ↑ Protest zbog najavljene privatizacijeBlic, 4 March 2009
  12. ↑ Ne damo naš hotel;Alo!, March 2009
  13. 1 2 „Astorija” prodata jeftino;Politika, 7 March 2009
  14. ↑ Article on Hotel Astoria - legal case study in Vox Iuris, Journal of legal theory and practice, 2009, No. 3-4
  15. ↑ Borba za „Astoriju” se nastavlja;Politika, 9 March 2009
  16. ↑ Ročište u slučaju „Astorija”;Politika, 12 March 2009
  17. ↑ Обнова „Асторије” у сенци имовинских прегањања;Politika, 24 August 2009
  18. ↑ Gubi bitku sa državom;Glas javnosti, 17 August 2009
  19. ↑ Ponižavanje;Kurir, 17 August 2009
  20. ↑ British Library Catalogue Article "Remembering the beginnings of the (re-established) Democratic Party", SOUTH SLAV JOURNAL, 2006, VOL 27; NUMB 3/4, pages 62-71

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