The Valencian Museum of the Enlightenment and Modernity, better known as the MuVIM, is located on a large plot in the centre of Valencia, originally the site of the Hospital de los Inocentes, the first psychiatric centre, as such, in history. It was also the location of the Hospital General and the Faculty of Medicine. With the increase in population, by around 1900 the city had outgrown those healthcare infrastructures and they were relocated to other sites in Valencia.
Of all those constructions the only part left standing was the hospital infirmary which is, today, a very well-used public library. Some archaeological remains were also conserved and these have been maintained, as testimony, dispersed around the gardens.
The demolition of the other buildings, with over 600 years of history, was carried out for speculative purposes to build high-rise housing blocks, but the response by some cultural institutions that objected to this proposal managed to stop this urban development.
In this place, so full of history, it was decided in 1998 to begin building the MuVIM, which would be completed in 2001. A museum built on a plot with an angular and difficult geometry by the architect Guillermo Vázquez Consuegra (Sevilla, 1945) and which is one of the most striking architectural proposals in the city.