06 Grand Hotel

Texts by Rodolfo Huber

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We stand in front of the entrance to the Grand Hotel, a decadent testament to the luxurious Locarno tourism of the late 19th century, when, thanks to the construction of the Gotthard railroad, the city experienced a period of extraordinary development.

The Grand Hotel was designed and built between 1874 and 1876 by architect Francesco Galli for a group of investors gathered around the figure of Giacomo Balli, a member of a prominent family of entrepreneurs and merchants originally from the Maggia Valley.

The hotel covers an area of nearly 10,000 square meters, divided between the building, a typical example of the Belle époque, and its once lush garden. Inside, guests were welcomed by in magnificent salon filled with mirrors and gilded fixtures. From here they accessed the balcony, and then descended down a wide and impressive staircase that gave a wonderful view of the lake.

For the 1925 diplomatic conference, the Grand Hotel, which was the city's most prestigious hotel, hosted delegates from France, Belgium, Italy, the United Kingdom and Czechoslovakia. The Polish delegation found no room in the Grand Hotel and lodged in the Metropol Hotel on Piazza Grande. The German delegation chose a more secluded hotel, the Hotel Esplanade in Minusio.

A commemorative plaque was placed in the lobby to commemorate the "eleven days of momentum and hope," as the peace conference was called by historian Mario Agliati.

In 1946, twenty years after the signing of the Locarno Accords at the end of World War II, the Grand Hotel became the venue for the Locarno International Film Festival. During the first decades, film screenings were held in the hotel grounds. Then, in 1971, the screenings were moved to the Piazza Grande. Subsequently, the Grand Hotel suffered a decline that led to its closure in 2005. Restoration work on the hotel has began in 2023, and it is scheduled to open in 2026.