Four Seasons Hotel Madrid

Calle de Sevilla meets Calle de Alcalá a hundred metres from the Puerta del Sol, and the block between them, seven buildings put up between the 1880s and the 1940s, is the Centro Canalejas. The Four Seasons Hotel Madrid stands behind their restored stone façades, a luxury hotel in Madrid's old centre that opened in September 2020, the first Four Seasons in Spain, after a decade of planning and restoration.

History

The grandest of the seven buildings, on the corner of Alcalá and Sevilla, was built for the insurance company La Equitativa to a design by José Grases Riera and finished in 1891. The Banco Español de Crédito later made it its headquarters, and the bank's name stayed on the façade through most of the 20th century. The neighbouring buildings housed other banks. In 2012 Banco Santander sold the block to a partnership of the Villar Mir group and the contractor OHL, which obtained permission to join the buildings into a hotel, apartments and a shopping arcade on condition that the protected façades, the main staircase and the banking hall survived. The hotel opened on 25 September 2020. The Galería Canalejas arcade below it followed in 2021, and 22 private residences under the Four Seasons name share the upper floors.

Architecture and design

Estudio Lamela led the architecture and the San Francisco studio BAMO designed the hotel interiors. The old banking hall, with its marble and bronze, was kept as a public room; a glazed atrium was opened in the centre of the block to bring light to the lower floors; and a seventh-floor rooftop was added above the historic roofline with a terrace over Alcalá. The hotel's art collection, assembled for the opening, runs to some 1,500 works by Spanish artists.

Rooms and suites

The 200 rooms and suites, 39 of them suites, are spread across the seven buildings, which means ceiling heights and window shapes vary from one room to the next. Many rooms look down on Alcalá or Sevilla; the quietest face the atrium. The largest suites occupy the corners of the Banesto building with the original tall windows.

Dining

Dani Brasserie, on the seventh-floor rooftop, belongs to the Marbella chef Dani García and serves a brasserie menu with a view over the rooftops to the Metrópolis building. Isa, on the ground floor, is the cocktail bar, with an Asian-influenced menu. El Patio, in the atrium, serves breakfast, afternoon tea and lighter meals through the day. The Galería Canalejas food hall downstairs adds a dozen more counters.

Wellness

The spa covers 1,450 square metres on four levels, the largest in a Madrid hotel at its opening, with a heated indoor pool under a skylight, a hydrotherapy circuit, saunas, treatment rooms and a gym.

Weddings and events

The hotel has a ballroom and a set of meeting rooms on the lower floors, used for weddings, dinners and conferences, and the rooftop and the atrium are let for receptions. The ballroom takes the largest weddings; the smaller salons suit boards and private dinners.

Location

The Puerta del Sol is a hundred metres away. The Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza are 10 minutes on foot down the Carrera de San Jerónimo, the Retiro park 15 minutes. The Gran Vía begins 300 metres up Calle de Alcalá at the Metrópolis building. Sol and Sevilla metro stations are at the door. Atocha station is 10 minutes by taxi and Madrid-Barajas airport about 30 minutes.