Owner: Evok Group
Architecture: Jerónimo Pedro Mathet Rodriguez (1919-1922)
Interior design: Philippe Starck
Furnishings and lighting: on design by the architect, selected vintage pieces and objects
Photo credits: Guillaume de Laubier, courtesy of Evok Collection
Imagining characters, immersing oneself in fragments of experiences, living emotions. These are spaces charged with emotions, created by Philippe Starck for the Madrid location of the new hotel from Evok Collection. The second outside national borders, after the Venetian one, for the French hotel group known for its unconventional approach to lifestyle. Branch Madrid is located in one of the most vibrant places in the city – at No. 20 Gran Via – alive day and night.
The history of the building, built between 1919 and 1922 by the architect Jerónimo Pedro Mathet Rodriguez, and its memory of illustrious tenants have unleashed Starck’s imagination, returned in a kind of modern nostalgia. Each material and object expresses a contrasting Spanish soul. «Madrid is a singular and contradictory city. Marked by 36 years of Francoism, it has gone from one extreme to another, from fascist dictatorship to the Movida», says the designer.
«I wanted to capture the unexpressed spirit of a rich fabric that people will love to retrace several times through new details, whispers that tell buried memories». Opposing polarities that, instead of clashing, merge into a magnetic unity, between historical stylistic features – such as the high windows adorned with balconies or the imposing wrought iron staircase – and the refinement of Starck’s contemporary thinking. Indeed, it is an entry into the memories of an imaginary protagonist that one experiences in the 57 rooms, where decorative objects and graffiti on the walls are traces of the lives that have inhabited the places. A wardrobe-shelf in front of the bed offers a biographical clue that is up to the guests to decipher, surrounded by the mahogany tones of the wood paneling and some touches of bright pink or orange on trims and passementerie. And also in the bathroom, where the breccia floor stands out, the imposing mirror with a green enamel frame suggests the identity of the mysterious protagonist.
The restaurant is an immersion in the mecca of intellectual and artistic freedom of the past, allowing one to imagine characters such as Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel and Federico García Lorca sitting discussing under woven leather ceilings, between columns covered in glazed terracotta tiles and thick curtains in shades of beige, or on natural leather armchairs next to double lampshades to soften the light.
A support surface covered with interlocking wooden elements, sculpted by the designer Patrick Kim-Gustafson, characterizes the open kitchen. While the cocktail bar is inspired by the Spanish countryside, with large glass containers wrapped in woven straw lined up above the counter, and equipped with small taps for a playful and folkloric dimension. Only the Spa deviates from dominant materials such as wood and terracotta, expressing a state of almost weightlessness, through immaculate and floating spaces with the use of pure white and gold.
