Photographs of renewed Sant Pau's Hospital
29/01/2015.
By David Cardelús [BCN] Spain
metalocus, BRANLY ERNESTO PEREZ
metalocus, BRANLY ERNESTO PEREZ
I must confess that if I decided to photograph the refurbishment of the Sant Pau’s Hospital probably I did it firstly to give answer to the big emotive connections that join me to the Domènech i Montaner’s building and because this has been always the hospital of my district in Barcelona, that is why somehow or other, many of my relatives and friends have visited it to be cured, treated of any disease and others were born or died there.
Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Interior. Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Interior. Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Interior. Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Interior. Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Interior. Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Interior. Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Details. Sant Pau’s HospitaDetalleDetails. Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús. l. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
DetalleDetails. Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Sant Pau’s Hospital. Lluís Domènech I Montaner. Photograph © David Cardelús.
Recently, the Sant Pau’s Hospital has been refurbished to protect and show all its architectural riches and turns it into the biggest modernist building group in Europe.
Situated few blocks from the Sagrada Familia, the Sant Pau’s Hospital was declared a World Heritage place by the UNESCO in 1997, and now can be visited, after its deep refurbishment. The hospital, planed by Catalan architect Lluís Domènech i Montaner, was created as a city inside a city, a sum of spacious colourful pavilions, well ventilated and situated in a good position and surrounded by gardens that could improve the health of the patients. Domènech i Montaner was a modernist architect, the contemporary of Antoni Gaudí, who is the author of the Palau de la Música in Barcelona.
Doubtless I have photographed Sant Pau’s Hospital because of the huge fascination that the expressiveness of the Catalan modernist architecture causes on me as architecture photograph – an architecture photograph concentrated almost exclusively in reproducing contemporary architecture – despite the almost daily relation that I have when I look at it during my walks around the city. Indeed is that the biggest difficulty to tackle a photograph project like this one, to go beyond the merely daily routine and find in the Sant Pau’s modernist architecture the most attractive abstract power of the thousands of decorative pieces, sculptures and intricate ornamental details. Then again, to capture the simplest appearance and create an essential continuity in the purest forms, in order to add the colour plastic quality to the buildings illuminated by the different lights of the day.
The simplest, clearest and brightest the visual language of the photograph framing is, the most harmoniously they are formed and they will more quickly attract the spectator’s attention. Simple forms and saturated colours work always when an architectural project in photographs is interpreted, and much more in a building as Sant Pau’s Hospital.
I am convinced that capturing in a conscious and pre-meditated way these plastic and more abstract qualities of a building of a unique heritage, as it is, is the only method to portray truly in pictures their historical continuation and to put it out of a time.
More information
Lluís Domènech i Montaner
Lluís Domènech i Montaner. (December 21, 1850 – December 27, 1923) was a Spanish architect who was highly influential on Modernism, similar to Arts and Crafts, Art Nouveau or Jugendstil movements.
Born in Barcelona, he initially studied physics and natural sciences, but soon switched to architecture. He was registered as an architect in Barcelona in 1873. He also held a 45-year tenure as a professor and director at the Escola d'Arquitectura, Barcelona's school of architecture, and wrote extensively on architecture in essays, technical books and articles in newspapers and journals.
His most famous buildings, the Hospital de Sant Pau and Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, have been collectively designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As an architect, 45-year professor of architecture and prolific writer on architecture, Domènech i Montaner played an important role in defining the Modernisme arquitectonic. This style has become internationally renowned, mainly by Antoni Gaudí works.
His buildings displayed a mixture between rationalism and fabulous ornamentation inspired by Spanish-Arabic architecture, and followed the curvilinear design typical of Art Nouveau. In the El castell dels 3 dragons restaurant in Barcelona (built for the World's Fair in 1888), which was for many years the Zoological Museum, he applied very advanced solutions (a visible iron structure and ceramics). He later developed this style further in other buildings, such as the Palau de la Música in Barcelona (1908), where he made extensive use of mosaic, ceramics and stained glass, the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona, and the Institut Pere Mata in Reus.
Domènech i Montaner's work evolved towards more open structures and lighter materials, evident in the Palau de la Música. Other architects, like Gaudí, tended to move in the opposite direction.
He died in Barcelona in 1923 and was buried in the Sant Gervasi Cemetery in that city.
Born in Barcelona, he initially studied physics and natural sciences, but soon switched to architecture. He was registered as an architect in Barcelona in 1873. He also held a 45-year tenure as a professor and director at the Escola d'Arquitectura, Barcelona's school of architecture, and wrote extensively on architecture in essays, technical books and articles in newspapers and journals.
His most famous buildings, the Hospital de Sant Pau and Palau de la Música Catalana in Barcelona, have been collectively designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As an architect, 45-year professor of architecture and prolific writer on architecture, Domènech i Montaner played an important role in defining the Modernisme arquitectonic. This style has become internationally renowned, mainly by Antoni Gaudí works.
His buildings displayed a mixture between rationalism and fabulous ornamentation inspired by Spanish-Arabic architecture, and followed the curvilinear design typical of Art Nouveau. In the El castell dels 3 dragons restaurant in Barcelona (built for the World's Fair in 1888), which was for many years the Zoological Museum, he applied very advanced solutions (a visible iron structure and ceramics). He later developed this style further in other buildings, such as the Palau de la Música in Barcelona (1908), where he made extensive use of mosaic, ceramics and stained glass, the Hospital de Sant Pau in Barcelona, and the Institut Pere Mata in Reus.
Domènech i Montaner's work evolved towards more open structures and lighter materials, evident in the Palau de la Música. Other architects, like Gaudí, tended to move in the opposite direction.
He died in Barcelona in 1923 and was buried in the Sant Gervasi Cemetery in that city.
DAVID CARDELÚS
David Cardelús. Born in 1967 and raised in Barcelona, David majored in photography, film and video from Universitat de Barcelona Fine Arts School in 1991. Architecture Photographer since twenty years, he specialized in representing contemporary architecture for architectural firms and national and international publishing companies.
His photographs have been praised as having a distinctive graphic plasticity used to create images that serve both as unique aesthetic objects as well as powerful tools of communication. His work has been honored with the Civic Trust Awards 2012 and the International Photography Awards 2013. His most recent assignments include photographing the Palau de la Generalitat in Barcelona on the occasion of the commemoration of the 600 years of the building for the presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya and the rehabilitation of the Modernist Compound at the Sant Pau Hospital by Lluís Domènech i Montaner.
