La Paz University Hospital
La Paz Hospital is one of the most important public institutions in the city and the country. Located on the Castellana, where many of these institutions are found, including the Prado Museum, the Bank of Spain and the National Library, its project is critical for the construction of the urban and civic space – in the broadest sense of the term – in the north of Madrid, which is still to be completed. Furthermore, the project requires formidable geometric rigour and organisational clarity in order to resolve the extraordinary complexity of its functional programme and its construction in phases, while continuing to provide an essential service at all times.
This project is the result of a total commitment to the city and to the public – in both of which we strongly believe – to cutting-edge hospital science, which we know very well, and to sensitive and user-friendly architecture for the people who will use the hospital. We propose a construction and structural system based on simple and effective rules that precisely meet the needs of the programme and the logistics of phased execution. At the same time, this system has generous margins of variation and freedom that the hospital project explores to transform La Paz into a rich and varied set of different places, some hyper-specialised and precise, others ambiguous and sensual.
The large volume that needs to be built is fragmented, creating small-scale spaces that do not impose themselves oppressively on citizens. However, La Paz is also inevitably linked to the city's large infrastructure, the giant scale of its neighbours and the distant landscape of the Sierra de Guadarrama to the north of Madrid, and in contrast to these, it asserts the importance of public institutions and the construction of its identity. This project strikes a balance between these two contradictory demands. We have used a contemporary but familiar hospital model that we have already tried and tested on other occasions in large hospitals, both in Spain and elsewhere in the world, which we have adapted to the exceptional compact conditions of La Paz.
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