Sant Pau Hospital: Cupolas

Can you imagine a hospital with buildings like this?

Think of a central square with colorful flowers and bloomed orange trees surrounded by brick wall pavilions crowned with beautiful Art Nouveau cupolas and literally covered with sculptures and assorted architectural adornments. That is not a dream, it exists. You only have to visit Sant Pau Hospital (Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau).

Maybe you would say: "No way, I don't like hospitals". Well, the pavilions are not functional anymore so they will not admit you as a patient. Just enter through the main gate on Cartagena street, one block away from L5 blue subway line. You can sit on a bench there, take a lot of wonderful pictures and most of all, enjoy the peaceful atmosphere of the place. When you leave you won't have the feeling you visited a hospital but the certainty that you have been in contact with a beautiful past.

Cupola, Via Laietana, Barcelona

After much thought and starting working on my color version I completely deviated from my original path. It turned out that the cupola, the one you can admire if you walk along Via Laietana in Barcelona, looked better in black and white, well almost as I finally gave it this bluish touch. The building in fact has two cupolas and occupies a whole block of this heavy traffic street. Very near you have Palau de la Musica. There are plans to build new hotels in this area to which neighbors openly oppose. 

Street view image

Park Guell, Barcelona - Entrance Tower With Spire And Trencadis Work

This is a detail of one of the two towers at the main entrance to Park Güell on Carrer d’Olot, the fairytale gatehouses that once served as homes for the park’s keepers.

In the picture you can see a very slender spire crowned by a four‑armed cross, a small mushroom‑like cupola with a faintly oriental air, and the peculiar battlement running around the edge of the roof, an unlikely combination you would normally associate with storybooks or very wild dreams.

Notice the impressive trencadís work on the roof, the shimmering mosaic created from irregular shards of ceramic tile that has become one of Gaudí’s most recognizable signatures throughout Park Güell and the rest of his Barcelona architecture.