Riječki neboder, Modernist skyscraper in Rijeka, Croatia.
The Riječki neboder, also called Palača Arbori, is a 53-metre tower on Jadranski trg with 14 floors above ground: a ground floor, a mezzanine and twelve upper floors. Its first floor is stone-clad, the upper facade is pastel-yellow brick, and the main entrance faces south. Later frescoes by Carlo Sbissa were added.
Built from 1939 and completed on 1 April 1942, the tower was commissioned by the Arbori family, emigrants who had returned from the United States. The project was entrusted to the Trieste architect Umberto Nordio, who had already designed a similar high-rise, Casa Opiglia-Cernitz, in Trieste. A rumour held that the money came from the father's work as Al Capone's accountant, and the investor left Rijeka during the war without recovering his outlay.
The name "neboder" was adopted after the war to distinguish it from the Sušak skyscraper built at the same time; before that it was Palača Arbori, after the investor family. The ground floor housed a Milanese trading warehouse and the mezzanine its offices, while the upper floors held flats. The sixth floor counted as elite: one flat there had two entrances. A shared laundry and drying room occupied the roof.
The tower stands on the western side of Jadranski trg, with its main entrance on the south facade; the first storey is faced in stone, the upper floors in pale yellow brick. Since the 2007 reconstruction the building operates as the Riječki neboder hotel, so the lobby and common areas are open to guests and visitors rather than being closed private space.
The building's name comes from a rumour: the investor's father, or the investor himself, had worked as Al Capone's bookkeeper, and the money was said to come from Prohibition-era earnings. The investor left Rijeka during the war and never recovered his investment, but the city kept its first skyscraper.
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