The often-forgotten Hospital de Sant Pau
As big as the crowd in front of Sagrada Familia, as empty is the space in front of Hospital de Sant Pau. Most travel guides and blogs hardly refer to this complex, but that’s completely unjustified. As the biggest Catalan Modernist complex around, Hospita
A SMALL HISTORY
With the immense expansion of Barcelona in the 19th century, the medieval Hospital de la Santa Creu (see page 43) was bursting at the seams. Luckily, the Catalan-turned-Frenchman Pau Gil didn’t forget about his home-town on his death bed. In his will, the banker who lived in Paris left half of his fortune, approximately three million pesetas (comparable with 350 million euros in our current economy), to the Hospital de la Santa Creu to build a new hospital just outside of Barcelona. It was named after him: Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau. Lluís Domènech i Montaner, the founder of Catalan modernism and the teacher of Antoni Gaudí and Josep Puig i Cadafalch, was contracted to design it. He strongly believed in the therapeutic power of beauty and came up with a design of colours, elegance and greenery, yet without jeopardising the practical functionality of the hospital. The works kicked off in 1902 and were overseen by Domènech i Montaner until his death in 1923. After that, his son completed his life’s work, although the financial troubles made it difficult to keep building such lush hospital wings. In 1930, the works were finally finished, and the poor were welcomed into this colourful, medical palace. When King Alfonso XIII of Spain inaugurated the hospital, he didn’t crack as much as a smile. After the ceremony, he told Domènech i Montaner’s son: “You are weird people, here in Barcelona. You build a palace for your poor and house your kings in a barn.”
ON THE INSIDE
A stroll through Hospital de Sant Pau is all you need to realise that Domènech i Montaner was light-years ahead of his time. Innovative concepts that we consider new-fangled to date were already implemented in his brilliant design. Domènech i Montaner strongly believed in the power of a healing environment. Therefore, he housed the patients in separate, colourful pavilions around a big, green patio. These buildings were quite sizable but were partially built underground and oriented with their shortest side to the garden to make the complex look homely. Domènech i Montaner also designed the entire hospital – the size of no less than nine Eixample blocks, or nine times the surface of the Sagrada Familia – diagonally to catch as much sunlight as possible. Yet, the separate pavilions also served a medical need. By separating the ill according to disease, the risk of them infecting each other was drastically minimised. By connecting all these pavilions through a network of underground tunnels, nurses and medical staff could still navigate the different pavilions without having to disturb the peace and quiet of the big, central garden.
AND NOW
To date, Hospital de Sant Pau is devoted to helping those most in need in our society and striving towards innovation. With the city expanding significantly during the course of the 20th century, Hospital de Sant Pau is now located in the centre of Eixample. Half of the enormous, UNESCO-protected site is now open for visitors, while the other half is still being used as a hospital. In the newest wings, hundreds of patients get treated every day. The older pavilions, on the other hand, house a large number of innovative researchers, each trying to solve today’s medical enigmas. The walls of the new hospital might be white and soulless, unlike anything Domènech i Montaner ever taught us, yet the utopian philosophy of Pau Gil still lingers in its corridors.