Hotel President Wilson

Brief information

An American president turned up in the name of this Geneva hotel: Hotel President Wilson is connected with Woodrow Wilson not as a guest, but as a person who played a role in the creation of the League of Nations. That is why the place by Lake Geneva reads not only as a hotel building, but as part of the city’s diplomatic landscape: the UN headquarters is nearby, and the hotel’s very name refers to international politics.

The hotel opened on May 18, 1962, but the most striking fact about it concerns the upper level of the building. The Royal Penthouse Suite occupies the entire eighth floor and is associated with guests at the level of heads of state. The contrast is heightened by an episode from 2016: the hotel’s computer equipment was infected with spyware, and confidential information was leaked. Here, luxury quite literally sits alongside the question of security.

What to notice first

The source gives few external details about the building, so the main focus is not the facade, but the location and the upper floor. Three things can be compared: the shore of Lake Geneva, the proximity of the UN headquarters, and the Royal Penthouse Suite, which occupies the entire eighth floor. This makes it clearer why an ordinary hotel high-rise marker has been turned into a sign of status: the most famous room is not merely large; it is set apart on its own level of the building.

It is worth noting how the description of the suite is tied to the view. It has 12 bedrooms, and the room looks out onto the Swiss Alps and Lake Geneva. In the source, the price of 60,000 Swiss francs per night is linked precisely to this combination: an entire floor, a panorama, and the level of the guests. The detail about the eighth floor helps one read the building from bottom to top: the hotel’s most important story is placed at the top.