A Legendary Film Location For Spy Movies Gets Made Into a Spectacular Five-Star Hotel

Budapest's Paris Court—one of the most ornate buildings in Europe—is renovated and repurposed into a five-star hotel.

Paris Court in Budapest, also known as the Brudern House, is eclectic in style, combining Art Nouveau, Moorish Revival, and Gothic forms and motifs for a highly decorative exterior and interior.

Originally completed in the early 1900s during the height of Budapest’s belle epoque boom years, Paris Court (Párizsi Udvar in Hungarian, also called the Brudern House) has been a landmark building since its construction. Sadly, following World War I, World War II, and subsequent decades of Soviet rule, the building fell into severe disrepair (its formerly stylish, Parisian-style shopping arcade at the ground floor was in particularly poor shape). However, the building and its iconic arcade recently reopened to the public as a five-star hotel following a major renovation by interior design studio KROKI and architecture studio ARCHIKON.

Designed by architect Henrik Schmahl and completed in 1909, the building originally served as a residential and office building. It had fallen into deep disrepair by 2015, when renovations and restoration work commenced.

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Tamás Bujnovszky

Even before the recent restoration and renovation, the building’s impressive Gothic and Moorish-inspired design by noted architect Henrik Schmahl began to be recognized (and even renowned) as a great film location for spy movies, fashion shoots, and other events that took advantage of its evocative interiors. Films like Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) with Gary Oldman; Spy (2015) with Melissa McCarthy, Rose Byrne, and Jude Law; and the series Dracula (2013-2014 ) with Jonathan Rhys Meyers all were all shot in Paris Court.