Hotel Borg
TommyBee, via Wikimedia Commons · Public domain
- Architect
- Guðjón Samúelsson
- Completed
- 1930
- Style
- Art Deco
Wrestler and adventurer Jóhannes Jósefsson built Iceland's first luxury hotel to a design by Guðjón Samúelsson — the same architect behind Hallgrímskirkja — on a tight one-year deadline timed to open for the 1930 millennial celebration of the Althing. Samúelsson travelled to study contemporary hotel design and brought in a Hamburg master decorator to paint the Art Deco ornamentation in the lobby, furnishing the hotel with Danish designer furniture and Bauhaus-style chandeliers. Its castle-like facade overlooking Austurvöllur Square has made it one of Reykjavík's most recognisable buildings ever since.
