This is the ceiling of a hospital. A hospital. As people there say “it is almost worth getting sick to come here” Its the Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Saint Pau, and the architect is Domanech i Montaner. When Gaudi was starting out, they said that he showed promise and might one day
be mentioned in the same breath as this man. History elevated Gaudi beyond, and to many, Barcelona and Gaudi are synonymous. Montaner just had the bad luck to be working around the same time.
Though his work is a little less fanciful and cleaner, the fantastic lurks within its lines. Okay, through the looking glass..
And onto the grounds….
And for a closer look at that tower…
We had been hitting all the Art Nouveau buildings in the area but we were on a quest to see the Sagrada Familia. We were still within the arches of the hospital and I was checking the map to see where to go from here when my partner said “were you looking for that?”
4 comments ↓
Gorgeous stuff. A former girlfriend of mine is from there. I’ve always wanted to go, and have enjoyed listening to her talk about it and how it has changed down through the years. (She grew up during Franco.)
Great pictures! I have a picture of a ceiling in Belfast. It’s this crazy Georgian dome, and underneath it… cashiers. The building is now a Tesco’s (grocery store). So incongruous. Was this building always a hospital? It would show such a huge difference in perceptions of what an “institutional” building should look like.
Ombudsben: have a book waiting for me at the library of before and after pictures of Barcelona. Can’t wait to crack it open. But girlfriend or not, go!
Nat: Always was a hospital. Commissioned as such. Amazing, what?
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