Art is becoming an ever more important element of major real estate developments, and this is especially true in hotels, where visitors want to feel that they’re not just crashing at an Airbnb but pampering their bodies and eyes in between bouts of participating in the culture of destination cities. Globally, many hotels are crafting unique artistic experiences, but perhaps no new hotel has done it better than the Four Seasons Madrid, which boasts a collection of 1,500 bespoke works of art in its public spaces and rooms. We recently had the opportunity to tour this collection with its curator Paloma Fernández-Iriondo and to ask her how this sterling selection came together.

Thank you for signing up!

By clicking submit, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge we may use your information to send you emails, product samples, and promotions on this website and other properties. You can opt out anytime.

The hotel opened in 2020 and you were brought onto the project fairly early because the developers wanted to have a strong art collection from the outset. Why was art such an important component in the development of the hotel?

Four Seasons Hotel Madrid is part of a large operation to rehabilitate seven historic buildings located in the heart of the city in a test of how past and present can coexist in the 21st Century—much as the art of the past and the present can be complementary in a collection. That idea was at the root of an art project I developed for six years in parallel to the transformation of the historic buildings, visualizing the project in the context of the 200 rooms, common areas, corridors, restaurants and other spaces. I started from zero, as one always starts when building large collections, but my experience at Sotheby’s and helping to create one of the most relevant collections in Spain—the Villar-Mir Cultural Fund Collection—was a prelude.

There was always the goal of bringing art closer to citizens, but we also hoped to launch careers and to give importance and relevance to artistic fact as a fundamental part of our lives and our experiences. The idea was to form a collection of Spanish art, with an emphasis on emerging creators, that would show the work of these artists and project it outside the limits of Madrid and even beyond the borders of Spain.

Today, hotel guests are looking for unique experiences and want to get up close and........

© Observer