El San Francisco de Paula Day Labor Hospital, also known as the Maudes Hospital. The need for health care for sick day laborers in the province and the constant lack of public resources led Dolores Romero y Arano, widow of the hardware businessman Francisco Curiel y Blasi, to create a hospital for day laborers in 1906. With this objective she creates a charitable society, dedicated to the consecration of San Francisco de Paula.

Designed and built by architects Antonio Palacios y Joaquin Otamendi, between 1908 and 1916, as a free healthcare hospital for day laborers residing in Madrid and its suburbs, with a capacity of 150 beds. The Hospital was built in a large, almost square block, located at that time, on the outskirts of Madrid, owned by the widow.

The land was in Maudes, a neighborhood near the Castellana Racecourse. The entrance to the chapel was through Paseo de la Ronda, the current Raimundo Fernández Villaverde street.

The design of the Hospital was made up of four naves arranged in a cross, which revolve around a central patio, with a fountain in the center, a design that optimized lighting, ventilation and reduced the distance of internal routes.

The construction report defines five different types of stone to be used for construction: Limestone, granite, slate, marble and siliceous stone. Something very characteristic in many works by Palacios.

During the Civil War The Hospital was seized by the Popular Militias in the summer of 1936 to cover health needs during the war. It was called the Sanatorium of Popular Militias and functioned as a blood hospital. In 1939 it became a Military Emergency Hospital, due to the destruction of the Carabanchel hospital.
By the sixties the decline of the Hospital began, it closed in 1970 due to the impossibility of the foundation to maintain its activity, dark years began for the building, decay and abandonment.

In 1984 the Community of Madrid purchased the building, rehabilitating it between 1984 and 1987 for administrative offices.

It houses two Departments: Department of Transport, Infrastructure and Housing, and the Parish of Santa María del Silencio (former chapel of the Day Laborers Hospital) for deaf and deafblind people.

It was awarded the City Council Award in 1916, and declared a Historic-Artistic Monument in 1979.

Another key work by Antonio Palacios, which because it is not on the tourist circuit of the capital, is not well known by those who visit us.

An Antonio Palacios who only lacked international projection to enhance his figure, without a doubt that of one of the most important Spanish architects in our history.

A abrazo.