Hotel Uzbekistan

This seventeen-storey hotel by Amir Timur Square, built in 1974, is the best-known building of Soviet modernism in Tashkent. It went up in the years when the city was being rebuilt after the earthquake of 1966, and became a showcase for the new Tashkent: foreign delegations and Intourist tourists were put up here. The facade is bent into an arc and covered entirely by a concrete sun screen that repeats the motif of the traditional panjara lattice — the device was thought up because of the heat, and at the same time produced a recognisable pattern that works as ornament across the whole wall. The building appeared on stamps and postcards and still defines the look of the square. The hotel is still used for its original purpose and the interiors have been redone over the years, but the silhouette and the lattice have been kept; the arc unfolds in full if you look at it from the Timur monument. The building works as a hotel, with guests and cafe visitors going inside, but the interest here is on the outside — the curved concrete lattice of the facade. The arc unfolds completely if you look from the Timur monument across the square. One of the main symbols of Soviet Tashkent.

On the map