Grand Hotel Bulgaria is a cultural monument of national significance and as such, any plan for a revamp and expansion is subject to specific regulations – but these have not been heeded in a project to give the hotel a makeover.

This was just one of a slew of criticisms the Union of Architects in Bulgaria (UAB) voiced against the launch of the reconstruction and expansion project of the development subsidiary of BT Development Services, the current owner of the building.

The UAB held a news conference on November 2, just days after InvestBulgaria, Bulgaria’s investment promotion authority, granted a First Class Investor Certificate to the 82 million leva project, which on completion would convert Grand Hotel Bulgaria into a 10 to11-floor mixed-use complex, entailing de-luxe residential, office and retail space.

The panel of architects said that the investor had not co-ordinated the project with the UAB, nor had it sought the approval of the National Institute of Cultural Monuments, even though the hotel is on the institute’s register.

UAB head Spiridon Ganev alleged that many of the details released by the investor were misleading. For example, the conceptual plan of the hotel had not sought to reinstate the building to its 1930s appearance in line with the structuralist modernism trend, as claimed. Rather, it would resemble a US building erected in the 1930s.

For this reason, this project threatens to change the outlook of a building that is part of Sofia’s historical map and dooms to death one of the capital’s emblems, said Konstantin Boyadjiev, a UAB member and head of Docomomo, an organisation “stamping” the “death certificates of late buildings”. He hinted that the building was to be filed in the organisation’s registry on implementation of the investor’s plans.

The project is alleged to be not only in violation of the country’s regulations on cultural monuments, and indirectly of the city’s master plan, but also of intellectual property law. The architects said that the daughter of Grand Hotel Bulgaria’s chief architect Stancho Belkovski – also present at the news conference – held all intellectual property rights to the building.

The architects recognised, though, that they have few levers to stop the project once it goes ahead. “We rely on the tinge of sanity from the investor, Culture Ministry and the public community,” Boyadjiev said