In a city not exactly bursting with luxury boutique bolt-holes, the Urso Hotel & Spa is a welcome addition to Madrid’s hotel scene. The 78-room property, located in an early-20th-century building at the crossroads of the Spanish capital’s increasingly hip Chueca, Tribunal and Chamberi districts, has maintained its grand neoclassical façade. And despite a contemporary vein running through its interiors, the design, by Spaniard Antonio Obrador, is primarily focused on preserving the building’s history, with restored oak panelling, marble foors and fabric-covered walls featuring heavily. In keeping with the heritage theme, the space has four original early-20th-century stained glass windows, as well as original azulejos tiles adorning the façade and entrance. Obrador also collaborated with artisan carpenters to renew the building’s original lift. A visit to the luxe Urso Spa by Natura Bissé, with its 12m lap pool and oriental steam room, nicely rounds of a busy day in the boardroom or boutiques.
ADDRESS
Mejía Lequerica 8
Madrid
Spain
-
Bang & Olufsen Reloved brings expertly refurbished tech to design-loving audiophilesBang & Olufsen’s new Reloved initiative expands the company’s focus on quality, circularity and sustainability
-
Unseen works meet immersive showstoppers as Yayoi Kusama hits SwitzerlandAt the Fondation Beyeler in Basel, there are 300 works by Kusama to discover and it’s delightfully discombobulating
-
RIBA launches new awards – and for the first winners, we look to the Middle EastThe RIBA Middle East Award winners are announced today. The first of the organisation's two new territory awards series honours a women-only mosque, a luxury hotel, a city park and more
-
A striking new cinema glows inside Madrid’s Reina Sofia MuseumBarcelona-based studio Bach reimagines a historic auditorium as a crimson-and-blue dreamscape
-
This boutique hotel in Seville is an unmissable cabinet of curiositiesLocated in the city’s Jewish quarter, Hotel Casa del Limonero is a modern and contemporary art and design enthusiast’s dream
-
Peek inside Madrid’s best-kept art secretSolo’s labyrinthine new art space in Madrid presents a surreal opportunity for exploring contemporary art and architecture
-
Has the ice cream parlour come of age?A global wave of architecture studios is treating the scoop as spectacle, turning parlours into immersive social spaces
-
Jaç Hi-Fi Café brings Japanese listening-bar culture to BarcelonaIsern Serra Studio unveils a sound-sculpted interior that brings Japanese listening traditions into Catalonia’s contemporary design landscape
-
This chic new restaurant in Ibiza looks like a gallery and feels like a partyMira by Gathering marries contemporary art, Mediterranean fare, and laid-back glamour in a space designed for both contemplation and celebration
-
Do luxury hotels need a farmer-in-residence?From Ibiza to Indonesia, hospitality brands are cultivating a new travel experience, where wellness begins in the soil and ends at the table
-
The most stylish hotel takeovers to pop up at this summerFrom Capri to Ibiza, luxury fashion brands are taking over seaside resorts with exclusive boutique pop-ups and bespoke poolside accessories
