Four Seasons Hotel Madrid Is An Art And Spa Lover’s Utopia

05.04.2024 - 20:13 / forbes.com / Art

The magic of hospitality is staying in a place that isn’t anything like home. A castle, a treehouse, a farm, a yurt: all such places promise an escape from the every day, especially when combined with luxury flourishes that boggle the mind. I am still wondering how ice showed up in the Gobi desert at the Three Camels Lodge in Mongolia or how blueberries came to be served at breakfast at the Explora Lodge on Easter Island. Or, in the case of the Four Seasons in Madrid, how a hotel combined seven historic properties into one sensational art destination.

A number of luxury properties tout art collections ranging in dozens of pieces, but there is no comparison to the Four Seasons Hotel Madrid, even against other Four Seasons destinations which often showcase private collections from their owners. More than 1,500 distinct art pieces fill every hall and room at this Four Seasons, perhaps the global record for a single luxury hotel. It’s worth a day to simply stroll around the property to savor the array of the collection, and the concierges team happily arranges extensive tours for guests.

Such a prodigious collection wasn’t compiled overnight, of course. The hotel’s entire gallery took four years under the expert eye of Paloma Fernández-Iriondo, a seasoned Sotheby’s auctioneer who led the Old Master Paintings Department in Spain earlier in her career. Fernández-Iriondo aimed to honor the historic and highlight the new within the collection, and she certainly hit the mark. For the historic pieces, Fernández-Iriondo called on inspiration from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza and the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, two of Madrid’s legendary art institutions conveniently located across the street from the Four Seasons Hotel Madrid. Inspired by the classic use of botanical arrangements, Paloma used 10 artworks to create more than 300 reproductions within guest rooms and suites.

For the new art, Paloma arranged a competition which received more than 500 proposals from Spain based artists ranging from sculptures to light installations. She whittled down the heap of submissions to 75 works, selecting a cornucopia of striking pieces including from Borja Torrent, an artist who uses vivid drips of primary colors, and Maria Elisa Rivera Armada, another creative with complex strokes in her moody paintings, one which is shown in a suite as a beige diptych titled “The Wall.” My favorite piece was the ash wood sculpture that looks like a giant rubber band, found in the hotel’s main restaurant, Dani. The piece, by Jose Cháfer and called “Curved Series 1,” challenges the mind in how wood could bend so elegantly. I also loved the peek-a-boo garden fresco painting by Sandra Val found in the ceiling of the