The newly built hotel opened in 1937 and became one of the first modernist buildings in Belgrade with Streamline Moderne elements, applying a minimalist façade design and relying on simple geometric lines rather than ornate decorations.

The state (including its successor states) ran the hotel through a state-owned entity DHUTP Astoria for the following sixty years, officially having the legal status of a socially owned concern,[4] with a member of OZNA showing up at the premises and informing the owners, members of Ninković and Savković families, that they won't be living there any longer.

[6] Led by Đurđe Ninković, son of the hotel's owner Milorad Ninković, they occupied the hotel from March 3rd until March 30th employing the principles of direct action, unhappy at seeing the family property sold by the Serbian government without having passed a denationalization law or a restitution law for property seized by the FPR/SFR Yugoslavia communist regime.

The hotel occupation received significant media coverage, contributing to the public debate regarding the Serbian government's failure to compensate owners for property forcibly seized by the communists.

[12] On 9 March, the Politika daily published an op-ed commentary by Đurđe Ninković who disputed the Serbian government's inherited legal basis to handle Hotel Astoria, invoking a communist era law ('law on nationalization of leased buildings and construction land for commercial exploitation') that came into effect on 1 January 1959.

[3] Among other things, he stated: "I invite everyone to try and derive their own conclusion about the fairness, legality, and finally, the price of the accepted bid at the auction that took place this past Friday.