The hotel’s hyper-local components give it the feel of a collective, and thus an authenticity that seems like a template for the city’s hospitality future.

Around every corner lurks a plot point. In the café, there’s Mother, Barcelona’s first cold-pressed juice bar, hatched by locals Gemma Ponsa Salvador and Lily Figel after living in L.A. and New York. An adapted pinewood doorman’s depot functions as a library, where indie publisher Jan Marti, 34, of nearby Blackie Books curates a selection international magazines. Madrid transplant and Argentine chef Estanislao Carenzo helms the Asia-Mediterranean kitchen at Elephant, Crocodile, and Monkey, which includes a champagne and oyster takeaway window.

Built into the skin of an 1869 building on the busy thoroughfare Gran Via, the hotel is accessed through a high-ceilinged corridor that leads to the reception. The rooms are intentionally simple, with eye-catching original mosaic floors and sun-drenched solariums.