Former Communist Party HQ now a five-star hotel

“Luxury is the opposite of the naturally necessary,” Karl Marx said — but tell that to guests at a new five-star Rome hotel in the former seat of the Italian Communist Party (PCI).

For decades the headquarters of the biggest communist party in the West, the imposing building just a few steps from Piazza Venezia in the city center is now the Thompson Rome by Hyatt.

Its prices are not aimed at the proletariat: rooms range from 550 euros to 4,000 euros (US$553 to US$4,424) for a suite in high season.

Architect Renzo Costa poses on the rooftop of the Hotel Thompson Rome (Hyatt) in Rome on Wednesday.

Photo: AFP

“From the airy new lobby with travertine and marble elements to its luxury rooms, little remains of the former headquarters.

Construction on the original building first began in 1941, after the east-west artery Via delle Botteghe Oscure was widened, but work was interrupted by World War II.

It was conceived under fascism and completed in its aftermath, said architect Renzo Costa, who led the building’s recent renovation.

“This gives it that transformative significance, the opportunity to become a symbol, to change over time and then turn into a place of future political thought,” Costa said. “So this is a building that was born with the intention of moving toward modernity.”

Originally designed by Italian sculptor Gio Pomodoro, the entrance still boasts his stone relief sculpture covering an entire wall, with a hammer and sickle and Paris Commune sign.

The open, almost raw space retains a vintage feel, with 1940s-era armchairs, brass and glass sconces, and a bronze welcome desk whose pointed edges echo the large star incorporated into Pomodoro’s stone floor.

However, you will find no mention of the building’s past on the hotel’s Web page.

Italians tend to know the building’s history and are curious, but other visitors, not so much, hotel manager Arturo Reguero Gomez said.

“They need to know Italian history a bit better,” he added.

Some are not pleased by the new opening. A group of activists burst into the lobby this week, calling for more low-cost housing instead of private hotels in Rome.

However, Costa defended the transformation.

“This building was an abandoned building. Today it provides jobs for about a hundred people... So we carried out a restoration that respected its pre-existing state,” he said. “We didn’t come in here, gut everything and turn it into, I don’t know, a supermarket, right?”