New Josep Trueta Hospital in Girona

We saw the location as a landscape, a narrow gorge that constitutes the meeting point of the rivers and the mountain.

The wetlands lining the rivers produce intense plant biotopes that offer new and peaceful views into the distance.

The nearby mountain is the vertical limit over which the road slides.

Imagining the space produced by the disappearance of the existing hospital, a new and active river-mountain relationship seems possible.

On the present-day road, a new public space organizes the usual approaches and conceals car parks and services, freeing up space. This fluidity and openness allow intensity of movements.

The building is arranged along the layout of Carrer de l’Esport, completing it and creating an exit onto the new roundabout. The service and emergency entrances are laid out in this stretch, exploiting the difference in level (7.5 m) between the heights of the road above and the street below, near the river.

The public flow of visitors and patients is organized overlooking the river. Nature with its potential as therapy. Private internal services (doctors, services) flow past the road and the mountainside: more discreet and concealed.

This is one of the first buildings we see when arriving in Girona and, together with the future roundabout, constitutes a figurative limit or gateway, a fundamental aspect in the overall composition.

The large volume beneath the day clinic forms a plinth for the figure of the city, which appears head-on beyond it.

The tall building that houses the rooms is laid out and divided up according to reasons of space and internal domesticity, but also to take its place in the distant skyline that features the towers of the cathedral and the Church of Sant Fèlix.

Josep Lluís Mateo

Typology: Public building
Public competition. First Prize
Executive project: 2006-2011
Location: Girona, Spain