Hungary's first 6-star hotel to "float" on Danube island

The small Primás island on the Danube near Esztergom has been selected as the location for Hungary's first six-star hotel after the city council approved the architectural plans for the project, Index.hu reports. The architect is Gábor Zoboki, the man behind Budapest's award-winning Palace of Arts (Művészetek Palotája), announced that he had been inspired by Arab architecture, the towers of San Gimignano, and the Easter Island statues.

The 230-room hotel, due to be completed in 2-3 years, will consist of seven separate towers with single-story service buildings between them, including a 500-capacity conference center, a spa and a medical complex. Access to the island will be exclusively on foot, and the complex will be linked to the historic city of Esztergom by a bridge. The ground level buildings between the seven towers will allow guests to walk freely between them.

The 8.5-hectare island will get its own dam system to shelter it from the spring and autumn river floods, while the hotel complex will be raised above water level to offer further protection, while the cooling effect of the river and state-of-the-art ventilation systems will reduce the reliance on conventional air conditioning systems.

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