Barcelona - Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau

At the beginning of the 20th century the Hospital de la Santa Creu i de Sant Pau took over what had been up to then the role of the ancient Hospital de la Santa Creu. To the north of the Sagrada Família, with which the site of the hospital is connected by the broad Avinguda de Gaudí, the architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner built a hospital complex which, in contradiction to established principles of construction, was not a unified single large building but combined on one single large site the various hospital departments, each housed in a pavilion and separated from the others by large expanses of grass. The buildings display characteristic modernistic facade decorations.