nfortunately for moviegoers who’d like to visit, the Grand Budapest Hotel doesn’t actually exist. It’s a miniature model. The Grand Budapest Hotel was largely modeled on the Grandhotel Pupp. “There were some interesting interior details of the hotel that we liked, such as the wide corridors with carpet running down the center and windows that shone light into the hallways,” said Stockhausen.

The production team found a vacant building that housed a now defunct department store, known as Görlitz Warenhaus, and used the existing interior as a makeshift studio in eastern Germany on the border of Poland. The department store was built in 1912; the grandiose lobby of the Grand Budapest fit perfectly inside the steel-framed building.

The design team added various touches to the Grand Budapest from archival photographs of eastern European hotels. The tile floors were an homage to the Grand Hotel Pupp and the coat check was inspired by Obecni dum, a Prague municipal building with lots of glass mosaics.