Miniview: Brach Madrid by Philippe Starck

Ever so consciously curated under the creative direction of French industrial designer and architect Philippe Starck, Brach Madrid is designed to make guests feel as though they are entering a private home. An equal blend of French elegance and Spanish vitality, the 57-room, four-suite property teems with sentimentality: locational, emotional, and historical.

From the personal sketches and travel notes from a journey across Spain that surround the leather bed headboards to the walls adorned with images of two lovers, the property weaves both the story of a passionate love affair and a vibrant history of Francoism to the Madrilenian scene and beyond. The intention is to leave you ‘completely in the realm of the emotional’ and wanting to return for more.

Image credit: Guillaume de Laubier / Brach Madrid

The 1922-built, seven-storey Brach Madrid is located on the Gran Via thoroughfare. A hub of cafés, theatres, cocktail bars, the Gran Via is also known as Madrid’s Broadway, and is an area steeped in French history too— a delicate nod to the Brach brand’s first property in Paris.

Now, the hotel, its guest rooms, restaurant, patisserie, and modernistic La Capsule spa, all feed into its storied past and contemporary mise en scène.

The bedrooms, evocative of an aesthete collector’s retreat, are a palette of jatoba wood and golden tones, accompanied by flashes of pink and orange to evoke the exuberance of chaquetilla jackets. Tan leather (of the timeless Spanish variety), works of pottery and wicker, and woven textiles, each lend a sunny softness and warmth to the bedroom spaces.

In the guest bathrooms, precious breccia stone flooring, terracotta tiles, and mirrored walls coexist with mossy-green, enamelled, Medusan-esque mirrors— envisioned by Starck as if “fashioned by clumsy hands”— alongside bronze highlights and deep-soak bathtubs. The result is a space that embodies colloquial luxury at its finest.

As for the Brach Madrid’s restaurant, it seeks to envision “the collective unconscious of Madrid’s grand café of the 1920s,” where artists from all walks of life would have met to share plates, conversation, a bottle (or two), and— in Starck’s eyes— hang a painting. The restaurant’s window thus exemplifies this ideal, where artworks of varying origins hang haphazardly, as to offer passers by a glimpse or reflection of the performance that awaits inside.

The restaurant | Image credit: Guillaume de Laubier / Brach Madrid

With its mahogany and antique mirrored-walls, woven leather ceiling, thick textiles and dimmed architectural lighting from double shaded lamps, the restaurant’s atmosphere is one that, during the day, invites people to enjoy a subtler light and coolness, and in the evening, draws people in for the conviviality and warmth of the central and open kitchen, with its Mediterranean/Middle Eastern-inspired menu by Chef Adam Bahlta.

In a nod to Spanish village cafés, the cocktail bar features large bottles wrapped in woven straw, their shape reminiscent of the balloon bottles in which Catalan wines are aged. On the other hand, the Brach’s patisserie champions the French way of life in the centre of the Spanish capital; discover traditional Parisian pastries, try a Spanish-influenced flavour such as almond and honey, or devour fresh interpretations like the Chef’s turrón creation.

The patisserie | Image credit: Guillaume de Laubier / Brach Madrid

Following a ravishing excursion through history, step into a futuristic landscape at the Brach Madrid’s La Capsule, a spa where pure white furnishings embellished with gold decorate more than 400 square metres of blank space— a clarified place to search for well-being. “While gravity is very much in evidence throughout the hotel, particularly due to the choice of materials such as wood and terracotta,” said Starck, “I envisioned La Capsule as a cloud, an unblemished, intangible, floating space…[where] the weight of the body is replaced by pure spiritual energy.”

More than a luxury hotel, the Brach Madrid promises a deeply immersive and emotive experience, where history and the contemporary merge tangibly in design. Starck’s vision offers guests an escape to a space that feels both familiar and dreamlike. Whether indulging in the refined warmth of the bedrooms, the vibrancy of the restaurant, or the ethereal tranquillity of La Capsule, the Brach Madrid is an ode to elegance and emotional connection— a place that is bound to linger in the memory long after departure.

Main image credit: Guillaume de Laubier