History

The post-World War II cultural revival saw the return, after an involuntary break, of the Venice festival in 1946, and the creation of festivals in Locarno and Cannes. And the first Czechoslovak international film festival took place in Mariánské Lázně.

The festival, initially non-competitive, awarded its first Crystal Globe in 1948 to the still critically acclaimed Polish film The Last Stage. In the following years, culture became gradually subordinated to the political situation with the festival screening mostly communism-promoting films which would not score well with today’s audiences.

In 1949, the festival permanently moved from Mariánské Lázně to Karlovy Vary, a more convenient location. Its several venues scattered across town were making its organization extremely demanding.

As years went by, the number of visitors and the festival’s importance grew. The spa town’s cinema capacities and technical facilities were no longer sufficient to meet the demands of an international festival. Worries that the festival could move to a different city led to negotiations to build a new festival palace that would both fit the whole event and compare to its international counterparts.

In 1956, the festival was recognized as a Category A festival, the most prestigious label a competitive festival can get.

The festival was becoming increasingly popular with guests from the West. However, the USSR issued orders for the festival to be held in turns in Moscow and in Karlovy Vary.

The new building construction did not start in 1958 as planned. In 1963, a decision was made to expand the festival palace project to include an international hotel and an outdoor swimming pool filled with thermal water. An architectural design competition was announced. 82 teams took on the prestigious task but less than 30 of them met the demanding brief of the competition.

The design proposal was typical for the partially relaxed 60s architecture. Even though the building was diametrically opposed to the original built-up area it fit into the surrounding terrain. The innovative proposal included a 16-story hotel, an outdoor, rock-embedded swimming pool and a large cinema designed to look as if levitating in space.

Before the design competition, the Chebská street (Egerstrasse) was selected as the best place for the construction of the Thermal Hotel. The street featured roughly thirty, mostly Art Nouveau buildings in serious disrepair so their removal and replacement was deemed a better, economically sound solution. Mattoni’s Villa, the Pošta and Alice hotels, and the Komenský School were also demolished.

Experts applauded its meticulous design and use of high international standards. Before the launch of the construction, the Machonins made a trip to the West to find inspiration. They visited almost twenty buildings, mostly large cinemas and festival cinemas in France and the UK.

On 3^rd January 1968, while Czechoslovak cinema was surfing the new wave, construction works began in Karlovy Vary. The foundation stone ceremony took place later, on 5^th June 1968, as part of the opening of the 16th edition of the film festival.

Large open spaces cleverly play with light and colours. The tricky construction of the Large Cinema Hall, which is suspended on a long bracket, creates the illusion of the hall floating in space and defying gravity. A swimming pool overlooking the city was constructed on the rocky slope behind the building.

Shortly after the launch of the construction, in August 1968, Czechoslovakia was occupied. The government adopted a different approach to the construction of the Thermal Hotel designed and planned in a period of relative freedom. The Machonins did not sign the approval of the military invasion and their involvement became undesirable.

The communist party decided that, aside from being a festival palace, the hotel would serve as a spa sanatorium for the working class for the rest of the year. In 1974, Interhotel Karlovy Vary, the original investor, was replaced by the state-run company Československé státní lázně a zřídla (Czechoslovak State Spas and Natural Springs).

The opening ceremony of the Thermal Hotel boasting 533 beds in nearly 300 rooms, a 2000-place congress centre, restaurants and a swimming pool took place in 1977. While being criticized by the state propaganda for its shortcomings, especially for its robustness and appearance, the hotel was praised by international press after it hosted its first film festival for its modern design, architecture, and top-notch technical facilities.

1989 brought the return of freedom to Czechoslovakia but also difficult times for the Thermal Hotel. The public has been wrongly associating the hotel with the fallen regime, the normalization period, and insensitive communist building development.

Even the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, still hosted by the Thermal Hotel, was fighting for its survival after the Velvet Revolution. In 1994, Jiří Bartoška and Eva Zaoralová’s team took the helm of the event putting it back on the map of prestigious film festivals and securing the presence of world-famous film stars.

In 1991, a privatization project was approved to transfer the ownership of the hotel to the National Property Fund and announce a public tender. However, the project soon ran into problems.

After signing the purchase contract, the winning company registered the hotel under its name in the cadastre of real estate. However, it never paid the purchase price and immediately sold the Thermal Hotel to another company which paid the purchase price and became its registered owner.

Due to the violation of the tender’s conditions, the National Property Fund withdrew from the contract and cancelled the tender. In 1995, the Fund brought an ownership lawsuit against the companies. The Fund won the lawsuit four years later and transferred the ownership of the Thermal state company to the THERMAL-F public company of which the Fund was the sole shareholder. Shortly after, another ownership dispute began, this time with the company that finished second in the 1991 tender.

In 2011-2012, 35 years after the hotel’s opening, a balneotherapy centre and indoor swimming pool were built on the lower ground. The outdoor thermal pool was closed for the 2013 winter season due to its high running costs. Two years later, the loss-making, run-down swimming pool was closed for good.

At the same time, a proposal was submitted to the National Heritage Institute to make the Thermal Hotel complex a protected heritage site. The proposal was rejected in 2017.

The Thermal Hotel ownership disputes lasted until 2017 when the Supreme Court of the Czech Republic ruled that the owner of the hotel (officially THERMAL-F, a.s.) was the Ministry of Finance of the Czech Republic which had taken over the powers of the now-defunct National Property Fund. The ruling allowed the government to boost the company’s capital and the hotel’s management set to prepare its modernization.

In 2019, the hotel’s renovation began based on plans to address its general technical disrepair and high energy performance. Its main stages will be completed in 2022.

The largest part of the renovation aimed at improving the hotel’s energy performance. Supported by the State Environmental Fund, it should reduce energy costs by up to a half. The heating, ventilation and air conditioning system and utility lines in the hotel building, including a new fire safety solution, have already undergone complete modernization. Roofs and terraces have been insulated. The remodelling of the hotel’s upper floor Superior rooms, which is currently nearing its end, will be followed by a renovation of the whole building.

The scenic restaurant/café with an unbeatable view of the colonnade will also reopen its doors.

The Thermal Hotel is nearing middle age. In 2022, it will celebrate the 45^th anniversary of its opening. We believe that the hotel will benefit from the ongoing renovation while preserving its genius loci established by previous generations. Come see for yourself – book a stay at the hotel, visit Karlovy Vary or come by for one of the future editions of the film festival.