The Modernista Sant Pau Complex was built between 1905 and 1930 and designed as a garden city for nursing the sick. After being used as a public hospital for a century, its newly refurbished pavilions shine again in all their splendor. A visit to this exceptional architectural ensemble is a unique experience.
The complex, which consists of 26 ornate pavilions set in extensive gardens, ceased to be a working hospital in 2009, when all activity was moved to the purpose-built new hospital behind it. Located at the top of Avinguda Gaudí the site has been home to a hospital since 1401 when the city decided to unite Barcelona’s six hospitals in one and built the Hospital de la Santa Creu.
The Modernista hospital that took its place five centuries later owed its existence to a Catalan banker named Pau Gil i Serra who bequeathed his inheritance to the building of a new hospital in Barcelona. Gil i Serra specified that it must be the most advanced and innovative of its kind in terms of technology, medicine and architecture and that it must be dedicated to Sant Pau. Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau was built between 1902 and 1930 and designed by the architect Lluis Domènech i Montaner (who also designed the Palau de la Música). The magnificent entrance that faces Avinguda Gaudí opens into a wide open space in which the pavilions stand. Each pavilion housed a different medical specialty and they are connected to each other by underground passageways. Doménech i Montaner believed that light, art and beauty promoted a sense of well-being for sick and convalescing people and he decorated the pavilions profusely with mosaic murals, floral motifs and sculptures by the best artists of the period. In 1997 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage site.
