Harzburger Hof

The Harzburger Hof was not only one of the five largest and most important hotels in Germany, it was also always its own social microcosm and mirror of its time.

Opened as a ducal "Actien-Hotel" in 1874, it experienced ups and downs in the 20th century. Once the site of fashionable recreational vacations during the Empire, the Harzburger Hof became a center of cultural life in the 1920s, later serving as a military hospital and, after the war, as the headquarters of the occupying forces, before social life flourished again in the 1960s and 1970s. After the structural and economic decline in the eighties and nineties, the hotel was closed, and after a whole series of fires, only demolition remained.

In preparation for the new construction of the Grand Hotel "Harzburger Hof", Ulf Meyer places the history and future of the building in the context of the development of Grand Hotels, Harz tourism, contemporary history and architectural history.