Today‘s Geneva is a famous European city with beautiful lake and mountain scenery, which is the headquarters of the United Nations and hundreds of international organizations, and is known for its developed tourism industry and livability.

However, when the first steamship entered Geneva in 1823, tourists who came by boat saw watchmaking workshops and textile printing and dyeing factories on the streets, as well as slums and ”ugly streets”. 

The forwardlooking city government quickly decided to carry out urban renovation projects. The overall leader was Guillaume Henri Dufour （1787 1875）, a Swiss military officer and engineer who later became one of the founders of the International Red Cross. The construction of a hotel became the top priority of the project. It is said that Dufour once went to Paris to study and learn, which shows the importance attached to the project. 

In 1834, the Hotel des Bergues was completed and opened for business. The hotel was named after a German businessman and financier Hans Kleberger （14861545）.

It became the largest and most luxurious hotel in Switzerland with a neoclassical exterior. The noble public lobby and large banquet hall, as well as the extensive ground floor with shops and a caférestaurant, not to mention three hotel floors and an attic space to accommodate staff, all reinforced the building‘s attractiveness and reflected Geneva residents‘ longing for ancient Greece and the Renaissance. 

The Hotel des Bergues, as the first hotel in Geneva, has long been renowned. It has witnessed the historical process of Geneva evolving into a worldfamous city and diplomatic center, and has become a model for many luxury hotels in Switzerland later on.