The Architect this building is Camprubi i Santacana. It will no longer be so easy to overlook Monroyo, in the heart of the county of Matarraña in Teruel (Spain). The usual stopovers to buy some of its ham or pick some wild mushrooms or truffes in season can now be lengthened thanks to a striking new hotel on the outskirts of the town, next to the Consolación Hermitage.

The hotel designed by the firm of Camprubí i Santacana Arquitectes is an innovative project comprising a central house containing the services and communal areas, plus ten rooms built independently.

The hotel, which has borrowed the name of the hermitage, is notable for its close links with the natural world. For a start, the rooms are not classical hotel bedrooms but individual cubes clad with wood, set 100 m from the hotel’s central nucleus on a hillside reached via a natural garden of rosemary and thyme. They are called kubes: 36 sq. m of simple, almost minimalist architecture. Black slate foor, a bathtub dug out of the selfsame foor, a bathroom with a separate shower, a suspended chimney, an armchair and a reading lamp.

Each cube has a large west-facing window and terrace, framing a view exclusively confned to rolling hills shrouded in pine trees, with not a single building in sight. Total privacy.

Once inside the Consolación, it is diffcult to leave. All the spaces in the central nucleus are fexible, as well as being interconnected to establish a sense of overall unity. Thus, the rest area can be used as a lounge or meeting room, while the reception turns into a bar at night.

The kitchen, which is usually out of bounds in a hotel, is a meeting point in the Consolación. It is open at all times and there is always food and drunk available on the counter. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are served in an old outhouse that has been converted into a dining room made of stone, wood, steel and glass. The dishes are based on seasonal produce from Matarraña.

Architects: Camprubi i Santacana / Estela Camprubí Amat & Eugènia Santacana
Location: Monroyo/Mont-roig, Teruel, Spain
Year: 2009
Photographs: Jaime Font Furest & Consolacion Hotel