Hotel Puerta America Madrid
Cutting-edge Modern Architecture Distinguishes chic Spanish Hotel
Sep 28, 2009
Opened in 2005, the Silken group hotel made the bold decision to bring together an all-star stable of contemporary design gurus to stamp their mark on a single building, becoming the most stylish hotel in a city bursting with chic.
Architects Norman Foster, Jean Nouvel and Zaha Hadid (Pritzker Architecture Prize winners, all) and celebrity designer Marc Newson are among those involved in the project. Each floor of the 13-storey hotel has its own individual design by one of these prodigious creative forces, from the elevator foyer to the corridors, down to every detail of the rooms.
Cutting-edge Contemporary Design
The result is an astonishing smorgasbord of the cutting-edge best of contemporary design. Yet, as with so many projects conceived on such a grandiose scale, the whole seems rather less than the sum of its admittedly impressive parts.
Despite its extravagant abundance of style, the Hotel Puerta America crucially lacks personality. Situated in an undistinguished neighbourhood along the daunting arterial Avenida de America, connecting the airport to the city centre, the hotel struggles, with mixed success, to overcome the intrinsic soullessness of large-scale airport accommodation.
Madrid Glitterati Nightlife
One aspect that does help distinguish the hotel is the thumping celebrity and Madrid glitterati vibe of its public bars. The ground floor Marmo Bar, also designed by Marc Newson, hosts a DJ most nights; while the Jean Nouvel-designed Sky Night rooftop bar attracts a glittering cross-section of young, creative Madrilenos nightly.
The award-winning Lagrimas Negras restaurant also draws a local Madrid crowd, always an excellent sign for a hotel eatery, and is a popular choice for weddings and events among the fashion-forward crowd.
Modern Design Living
Perhaps the most attractive and worthwhile aspect of staying at the Hotel Puerta America, however, is the unique opportunity it affords to sample modern design living at its most progressive. London-based Zaha Hadid’s space-age infused floor, in particular - arguably the most outré, but also most successful design - serves as a prime example of the kind of revolutionary, visionary modern design that most would be reluctant at best to commit to in their own homes.
Yet there is a fascinating value to living within Hadid’s vision for a few days even despite certain impracticalities: the sculpted corian which defines the organic form of the room belies certain popular thought on modern design as typified by Le Corbusier and his successors, embracing and enveloping rather than alienating the inhabitant.
At least in this way, the Hotel Puerta America is a success: championing and celebrating the very best modern design has to offer.
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