Seven scenes from the 20th century in legendary hotels

Richard D’Oyly Carte financed the construction of the hotel with the proceeds from the performances of Gilbert and Sullivan operas at the neighbouring Savoy Theatre. Designed by Thomas Edward Collcutt, the hotel opened in 1889. It was lit by electricity and had electric lifts, known as ‘ascending rooms’.

In the 1920s, the hotel embraced the Art Deco style. Sir Howard Robertson designed the stainless-steel sign that still hangs above the Savoy Court. In 1927, interior designer Basil Ionides created Kaspar: a cat sculpted from a single block of London plane wood, lacquered black and now seated as the fourteenth guest at any table of thirteen in the Pinafore Lounge. Beneath the glass roof of the Thames Foyer was a dance floor where the house bands performed, and a hydraulic platform rose to form a cabaret stage. Fred and Adele Astaire danced there. At the American Bar, Ada Coleman — head barmaid from 1903 onwards — served Charlie Chaplin and Marlene Dietrich. The actress’s guest record, on display at the hotel’s museum, specified twelve pink roses in her room.

Lorenz Adlon opened his hotel opposite the Brandenburg Gate on 23 October 1907, following two years of construction work led by the architects Carl Gause and Robert Leibnitz. Hidden behind the Neo-Baroque and Louis XVI décor was state-of-the-art technology, including hot and cold running water, a power station and 110-volt light bulbs manufactured specifically for the hotel. Wilhelm II was keen to be the hotel’s first guest. Embassies soon set up offices on the upper floors and the Kaisersaal (Emperors’ Hall) hosted official receptions. During the Weimar Republic, the Adlon was one of Berlin’s leading diplomatic and social hotspots. Albert Einstein would wave to passers-by on Pariser Platz from his corner suite. Mary Pickford and Josephine Baker stayed there. Following the Berlin premiere of City Lights in 1931, Charlie Chaplin was greeted by a crowd that tore the buttons off his jacket and braces; he made his way to the lift with his hands in his pockets to hold up his trousers. Devastated by a fire in 1945, the hotel was rebuilt on the same site in 1997.

Launched in 1883, the Orient Express travelled from Paris to Constantinople in around eighty hours. In 1892, to accommodate its passengers, the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits commissioned the construction of a hotel, entrusting the project to Alexandre Vallaury, an architect born in Istanbul and trained in Paris. Boasting a neoclassical façade, Art Nouveau features and oriental décor, the Pera Palace opened its doors to guests at a gala in 1895. The first building in the Ottoman Empire outside the imperial palaces to be supplied with electricity, it offered running hot water and the city’s first electric lift – a cage-style cabin with counterweights sliding within two decorative cast-iron columns, still in use today. In 1926, its ballrooms hosted Istanbul’s first fashion show. Hemingway stayed there in 1922 while working as a correspondent for the Toronto Star Weekly. Room 411 is named after Agatha Christie, who, according to tradition, wrote Murder on the Orient Express there. However, hotel historian Andreas Augustin points out the lack of any written evidence and notes that, in the novel, Hercule Poirot books his room at the Tokatlian.

In the 18th century, Sultan Sidi Mohammed Ben Abdallah gave his son, Prince Moulay Mamoun, a 13-hectare orchard as a wedding gift. In 1923, the Moroccan Railway Company built a hotel there. Architects Henri Prost and Antoine Marchisio blended Moroccan and Art Deco styles: zellige tiles and Berber tapestries sit alongside Art Deco furniture. Before the war, European and American guests would bring their own furniture for long stays. Churchill discovered the hotel in late 1935 and made it his winter residence. He would move from balcony to balcony to follow the sun’s path and capture its exact colour. Following the Casablanca Conference in 1943, he persuaded Franklin D. Roosevelt to watch the sunset over the Atlas Mountains with him. He then painted the Koutoubia Minaret, his only painting from the war, and presented it to the president. In 1946, the painter Jacques Majorelle took part in the renovation work carried out as part of the hotel’s expansion, which, at that time, comprised around a hundred rooms.

• Rencontre avec Pierre Jochem, Directeur général du palace La Mamounia à Marrakech

Located on Taganana Hill on the Vedado seafront, the hotel opened on 30 December 1930. The New York firm McKim, Mead & White designed it, and Purdy & Henderson constructed the building in just fourteen months. Its distinctive layout in the form of two Greek crosses ensures that most of the rooms overlook the sea. The columns, cladding, floors and ground-floor details are set within a steel framework and carved from the same coral stone used for the Palladian entrance portico’s corner piers. The décor draws inspiration from Seville, Rome, Moorish architecture and Art Deco. In the garden, cannons from the former Santa Clara battery serve as a reminder of the site’s military past. Guests at the hotel included Buster Keaton, Johnny Weissmuller, Errol Flynn, Gary Cooper, Marlene Dietrich and Ernest Hemingway, as well as Winston Churchill.

From the Place Vendôme to the Vedado, these luxury hotels have served as salons, studios and residences for over a century. Gabrielle Chanel summed up this connection in a single word when speaking of the Ritz: ‘My home’.