LOS ANGELES — Less is more at the new citizenM micro hotel in downtown Los Angeles, with rooms measuring just 100 square feet.

“Our rooms are cozy,” said Benjamin Ward, general manager of citizenM in LA — which opened in late August. “Beautiful and cozy.”

The rooms are so cozy, in fact, that the hotel has ironing rooms on every other floor for travelers who need to get the wrinkles out. Such a mundane amenity simply does not fit — or fit with each room’s minimalist, yet artistic, high-tech vibe. 

Walk into any of its 315 pint-sized rooms, and there are a sink and mirror to the left, a toilet and shower to the right, and a square queen-size bed that fits wall to wall in front of a plate-glass window with downtown views. 

All of the room’s controls are on an iPad that lives in a charging dock within hand’s reach of the bed. Guests who want to change the bathroom lighting to a shade of blue or the room lighting to red can do so with a swipe on the screen. The iPad also controls the blackout window shade, room temperature, television and music.

The citizenM hotel is the first of its kind in LA, but it is the 23rd location for the company that created it. Based in the Netherlands, citizenM operates properties in 10 cities internationally, including London and Paris, and five in the U.S. Already, citizenM has locations in Boston, New York, Seattle and Washington, D.C. It’s currently in the process of adding another six U.S. locations, including San Francisco and Miami.

Designed for business travelers, or “mobile citizens,” citizenM is tech forward and largely self-service. When guests check in, they can do so without any human contact using a kiosk that also allows them to print their own key card. The hotel doesn't offer room service, but it does have a commissary with grab-and-go items that’s staffed around the clock, including a coffee and cocktail bar.

Hotel “ambassadors” operate similarly to the staff at Trader Joe’s, performing multiple roles.

“The person who checks you in one night might be shaking your cocktails the next,” Ward said.

CitizenM’s communal area is set up like a sprawling co-working space. It’s outfitted with interlocking black leather couches, colorful chairs, tables, booths, workbenches and meeting rooms, all of them wired with super fast WiFi and decked out with wall-to-ceiling eye candy that Ward describes as an “urban jungle.”

The tables are topped with ceramic alligators and cheetahs, its shelves lined with metallic monkeys and taxidermied wildlife — and books about art and architecture. One wall is decorated with skateboard decks, while another has repurposed the front end of a car as a planter overflowing with greenery.

Curated by Lauren Mackler, who co-created the Hammer Museum’s biennial Made in LA exhibition, citizenM brings the same local sensibility to much of the hotel’s decor.

The black and red carpet on the guestroom floors is a map of LA that includes many of its iconic landmarks, from the Griffith Observatory to the Hollywood sign to Pershing Square. Each elevator lobby is wallpapered with images of people who contributed to the hotel in some way, from construction workers to front-line workers to artists.

Located at the corner of Spring and 4th Street, with rooms that cost about $150, citizenM is a welcome and well-priced addition to a downtown hotel scene that is dominated by luxury players, though it lacks one iconic LA amenity: a swimming pool.