There is a painting by Francisco Masriera y Manovens entitled The Belles of the Ball. Painted in 1898, it depicts two sisters posing after a party. The younger, dressed in white, leans forward from a scarlet background, a coquettish look on her face as she urges the artist to hurry up — she has places to go and people to see. Her older sibling stands behind, aloof and uncomfortable, knowing that our eyes are for her sister alone. Once upon a time, she could have been Madrid, and her fun-loving little sister Barcelona — but not any more.
For years, the Spanish capital has taken second billing, a Castilian Hague to the Catalan Amsterdam, but Madrid has now stolen the limelight, sashaying onto the scene with a seductive confidence and the unspoken promise of pleasures more exotic, more sophisticated, than her little sister could ever offer. Drive into Madrid from any dir- ection and you’ll see the cranes in Spain arising from the plain, evidence that the capital is enjoying a period of sustained growth, with new hotels, restaurants, bars, shops and galleries opening weekly in what is indisputably southern Eur-ope’s most exciting city.
VIVA LA DIFERENCIA
I’m standing in a white acrylic corridor in Madrid’s newest hotel. Plasma-blue light pools beneath bulbous walls, making them shrink and swell like an asylum seen through the eyes of an inmate. The room number is slashed onto the flat door with the manic strokes of a madman’s brush, and inside the floor is black and the walls are mirrored. A rectangular window frames the room, its curtain an electric screen lit by a projection TV. The bed is a red circle in a black ring, the bathroom an open-plan installation cast entirely in blood-red acrylic. If the corridor suggested a futuristic sanatorium, then the room is the sanctuary of a madman’s mind. The lunatic in question is the architect Ron Arad, and if you think his idea of a hotel room is insane, you should see what Zaha Hadid has done six floors below.
Imagine the Star Wars town of Tatooine carved from snow. Envisage a totally white room with no straight edges, where the fixtures take Gaudi’s organic modernism to its illogical conclusion, where you can lie in a bath like a pool hewn from salt so white that, within moments, you lose all per- spective, all sense of depth, all spatial perception. “Perfecto por Kate Moss,” suggests staff member Gorka Urquijo as I walk into a wall.
This is a story of inspiration and of daring, an attempt to meet the future head on with an act of absurd patronage. The idea: to create a hotel that is itself a museum of modern design by giving 17 of the world’s leading architects and designers an open chequebook and one floor or public area each. Do what you like, said the normally staid hotel chain Silken, commissioning the Hotel Puerta America and happily putting the mad into Madrid.
Fifteen minutes from the Puerta del Sol, it stands in a dull residential area beside a motorway, rising 13 floors from the urban wasteland like a luscious purple heliconia, its drab surroundings enhancing its exoticism.
Although not quite finished — the rooftop pool has yet to be installed, and Norman Foster is dallying with rooms built in cream and chocolate leather — this five-star folly opened last week, and we got an exclusive preview.
Rooms are on the small side, with uninspiring views, but that’s not a problem. You haven’t come to look outside, and if you want an executive double with a trouser press and cable porn, there are 100 hotels in Madrid happy to oblige. But if you’ve ever dreamt of falling asleep in a designer store and waking up on a film set, you’ll love the Puerta America.
Up on the 10th, Arata Isozaki has placed a red leather fridge on a black tiled floor. A shoji-style screen throws chequerboard shadows on the black lacquered furniture in a futur- istic evocation of the pleasures of the night. Blade Runner shag pad, I scrawl in my notebook, and it’s hard to avoid the sci-fi analogies. Even the breakfast, with its test tube-like shots of nutrition, seems to suggest you’ve overslept by 30 years.
Hotel Puerta America, Avenida de America 41; 00 34-91 744 5400, www.hotelpuertamerica.com; doubles from £110
Downtown, meanwhile, the gorgeous new Hotel Urban offers a slightly more restrained experience, yet one that seeks to define the hotel as a fantasy destination in itself. Its terrific rooftop terrace, just opened, is Madrid’s hippest bar; and the rooms, all dark wood and marble, each display an ancient Buddha from the collection of the owner, Jordi Clos. The street side can be noisy, so ask for a courtyard view. A glittering column of gold falls like a solid ray of sunshine through the heart of the hotel, for no better reason than to raise a smile. Follow it to the basement and find a museum of Egyptian antiquity, again compiled from Clos’s vast private collection. Carrera de San Jeronimo 34; 91 787 7770, www.derbyhotels.es; doubles from £140
VIVA LA REVOLUCION
What’s ironic is that this hotel revolution is taking place in a city that suffers from mass insomnia. The nocturnal habits of madrileños present a challenge to Brits conditioned to heading home after last orders. Here, 11pm is dinnertime, and you’ll rarely encounter difficulty securing reservations before 10.
For an experience that is to cuisine what Puerta America is to architecture, try Dassa Bassa (Calle Villalar 7; 91 576 7397, www.dassabassa.com; £30-£40, including wine), where the young chef, Dario Barrio, turns food into subversive art. Inspired by the “molecular gastronomy” of El Bulli, in Cata- lonia, Dario cleans the palate with a shot of mojito foam and a dry martini in a tiny sphere of translucent jelly, before serving wonders such as rabo de toro in a chocolate sauce, all in a cool cellar of white-linen mini- malism. And be sure to try Juan Miguel Sola’s La Manduca de Azagra (Calle Sagasta 14; 91 591 0112; £40-£50, including wine), Madrid’s hottest restaurant, combining modern twists and Navarrese tradition to serve the finest croquettas in Spain and innovative delights such as taco de foie fresco — slightly seared raw calf’s liver.
VIVA EL ARTE
Madrid’s remoteness has long encouraged an intro-spection bordering on self-analysis. The Goya-esque tradition of painting windows into the Spanish soul continues, and if you only see one exhibition in Madrid this summer, head for the brilliant Otros Mediterraneos show at the Fundacion Canal (Calle Mateo Inurria 2; 91 545 1506, www.fundacion canal.com). The film-makers Fotoleve shot near-identical footage in six cities in six Medi- terranean countries to see if a homogenised inner-city culture exists. The results, shown simultaneously on six giant screens, are mesmerising. The exhibition is just one part of PhotoEspaña 2005, a summer-long event, running at dozens of galleries, that examines the development of the urban dystopia (91 360 1320, www.phedigital.com).
Another must-see is the Juan Gris exhibition at the Reina Sofia, where the curator, Paloma Esteban, has assembled a definitive collection of the native madrileño’s synthetic cubism (Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Plaza Santa Isabel 52; 917 741000, www.museoreinasofia.es; admission £2, free on Saturdays after 2.30pm).
VIVA LA MODA
On Saturdays, Madrid’s shops are open only between 10am and 2.30pm, and the best of them are in the Salamanca barrio. There’s always a chance that you’ll spot La Spice Pija (Posh) trawling the big-name stores on the Calle de Serrano, but for a more exclusive experience, explore the backstreets. Amarcord (Calle de Claudio Coello 113; 91 575 0543) is where Penelope Cruz hawks Earl Jean, Juicy Couture bikinis and Betsey Johnson dresses, while Dorotea (91 435 1805, www.dorotea.es), next door, sells handmade shoes to go with them. Sybilla, currently Madrid’s favourite designer, is at Calle de Jorge Juan 12 (91 578 1322).
VIVA LA VIDA LOCA
While Posh and Becks are rumoured to enjoy an imperial fizz at the Ritz (Plaza de la Lealtad 5; 91 701 6767), and Johnny Depp is rumoured to enjoy the slick flamenco dinner show at Casa Patas (Calle de Cañizares 10; 91 369 0496; admission £14), you’re better off sucking a mojito on the terrace of Hotel Urban before taking a dose of raw canto jondo at Bar Cardamomo (Calle de Echegaray 15; 91 369 0757, www.cardamomo.net), where you can see the latest flamenco talent play for free. For DJ sets and nightclub glamour, try the celebrated Museo Chicote (Gran Via 12; www.museo-chicote.com), an art-deco extravaganza that claims membership of the international “Hemingway Got Wrecked Here” club — prob-ably on chicotes, the signature red martini.
Better forget your designer bed in your cutting-edge hotel — Madrid is wearing her party frock, and she’s going to dance till dawn.
Chris Haslam travelled as a guest of the Spanish Tourist Office and Alamo (0870 400 4562, www.alamo.co.uk)
Getting there: for cheap fares for a long weekend in Sept- ember, try EasyJet (0905 821 0905, 65p/min; www.easyjet.com), from Bristol, Liverpool, Luton and Gatwick, from £41; BMI (0870 607 0555, www.flybmi.com), from Heathrow, from £66; Monarch Scheduled (0870 040 5040, www.flymonarch.com) from Manchester, from £85; and Aer Lingus (0818 365000, www. aerlingus.com), from Dublin, from €103.
More information: Spanish Tourist Office (020 7486 8077, www.tourspain.co.uk).
