ARCHITECTURE / INTERIOR DESIGN

MBM Architects

Part of Barcelona’s renaissance as a bustling centre for commerce and the arts, Hotel Claris has offered a high standard of design and luxury since 1992. The façade built one hundred years earlier in 1892 as the exterior part of the former 19th-century neo-classical Verduna Palace was reworked by MBM Architects and incorporated into a new hotel space.

Alcove lighting highlights the lobby with its plate glass fronting and copper, steel and concrete interior. The elegant juxtaposed lines of the stair-rails, for instance, complement the overall dynamism of the substantial staircase. Ultimately leading up to the rooftop pool that combines traditional tile work with modern glass and neutrally hued wood structures. Throughout, a quiet sense of determined modernism, clean lines and contemporary materials go hand-in-hand with the classic façade, which is a must on all architectural tours given of Barcelona.

The 124 guestrooms at Hotel Claris, including 38 suites reflect modern values, with elegant lines, detailing in steel and copper. No two rooms are alike, as everything in them is hand-made. From the design and construction of the furniture to the choice of marble and exotic wood, everything has been made by great craftsmen, working together using methods that are considered outdated in our time. Within this grand structure combinations of old and new, whimsy and logic, come in to their own. Over 400 objets d’art are scattered strategically throughout the building and rooms, and include a group of Indian and Burmese sculptures from the 5th to the 13th centuries, over a hundred original engravings, commissioned by Napoleon in 1812 during the Egyptian campaign, Turkish Kelims, Roman and Carthaginian mosaics and engravings by Guinovart, exclusively produced for the Claris Barcelona.