Grand Hotel National

The Grand Hotel National is a 5-star hotel in Lucerne, which opened in 1870. Located on the shores of Lake Lucerne, it looks out over Lucerne bay and the Alps of Central Switzerland. It offers 41 rooms and suites as well as 22 residence suites, plus four restaurants, a café and a bar. In terms of its fabric and architecture, the hotel has been designated a cultural monument of national importance, with a Category A heritage protection listing.^[1]

[[File:Grand-Hotel National, Luzern IMG 4957.jpg|thumb|Grand-Hotel National, Luzern IMG 4957]]

Until well into the 19th century Lucerne offered little by way of overnight accommodation. It was only with the advent of tourism midway through that century that the local council approved measures with the intention of exploiting the potential of the town's setting and scenery. The northern shoreline of the lake – now graced by the promenade and large hotels – was originally marshland. Work on reclaiming the area between the town and the Hof Church (the Church of St. Leodegar) began in 1836, followed by the building of the . This allowed the old , needed for crossing the marshland, to be done away with. The long-established Lucerne-based von Segesser von Brunegg family recognised the sign of the times; 1845 saw the brothers Eduard, Placidus and establish the town's first hotel, the Schweizerhof, which they situated by the lake specifically to take advantage of the fine views. The nascent railway arrived in Lucerne in 1859, thus signalling the start of a boom in foreign visitors from the upper social classes. The need for more accommodation for these well-heeled travellers soon became apparent. The von Segessers sold the Schweizerhof together with the adjacent hotel erected in 1865, the Luzernerhof, and founded the construction company Segesser & Cie in partnership with Eduard von Segesser's son-in-law Alphons Maximilian Pfyffer von Altishofen (otherwise known as Max Alphons Pfyffer); they acquired land in the outlying Unteren Halde district of Lucerne. The stipulations of the local authority were clear: a hotel palace had to be erected by 1870 capable of boosting Lucerne's standing in the burgeoning competition between tourist resorts. The dimensions of the project under consideration went beyond anything built to date: 84 metres in length and 27 metres high, i.e. half of today's volume

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