Jardins de Rubió i Lluch, Barcelona

Jardins de Rubió i Lluch opens into the former Hospital de la Santa Creu: a garden courtyard enclosed by arcades, where Gothic, Renaissance, and Baroque architecture meet. This was Barcelona’s principal hospital for more than five centuries. The institution began in 1401, when the city council and cathedral chapter brought six smaller hospitals together; King Martin the Humane attended the laying of its foundation stone.

Construction used funds and stone originally intended for an abandoned expansion of the royal shipyards. In the courtyard, a cross stands on a twisting Solomonic column added by sculptor Bernat Vilar in 1691. The chapel was completed in 1444 and later gained a Baroque entrance bearing an image of Charity.

The hospital eventually moved to the Sant Pau site, and the old buildings now accommodate the National Library of Catalonia. The former convalescent home houses the Institute for Catalan Studies. One especially poignant detail belongs to this place: Antoni Gaudí died here in 1926, three days after a tram struck him.