History
“The thermal spa of Luso is one of the greatest riches with which Nature has endowed our country”.
Written by Coronel J. Corrêa dos Santos, these words open the introduction he wrote in a book published at the time of the inauguration of the Grande Hotel de Luso in 1940.
In 1937, the Extraordinary General Assembly was proposed to build a hotel and a pool “(…) In the last two years, the Board of Directors has been careful to study the construction of a hotel for the enhancement of our Luso Thermal complex”.
The project then named Grande Hotel das Termas de Luso is of the authorship of Cassiano Viriato Branco (1897- 1970), who is considered by many to be the most powerful and inventive personality of modernism but also versatile between modern language and the traditional style of which is a good example Portugal dos Pequenitos (Coimbra) that shares with the hotel the genius of the architect and the vision and entrepreneurial spirit of Bissaya Barreto.
Inaugurated on 27 July 1940, the hotel project was born at the time Professor Fernando Bissaya Barreto (1886-1974) was the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Luso Water Society, to which he was connected for more than forty years.
Over 70 years of history, the hotel has been able to keep up with the new trends and demands of its guests, and it is worth mentioning some of the highlights of the hotel’s long life.
The construction of the hotel, the realization of the auditorium project, conference rooms, indoor swimming pool and access tunnel to the Termas de Luso, the reclassification of the hotel to 4 stars and, at present, the execution of the remodeling project, authored by Atelier Reimão Pinto, recently completed.
This last renovation had as a starting point the creation of a new image for the Grande Hotel de Luso respecting the identity and the original architectural space of the building. Boasting the modernist elements, using Art Déco notes and valuing the uniqueness of its architecture, creating a new soul for this emblematic hotel.