In 1912, Joaquín Hortelano commissioned architect Daniel Rubio the construction of this beautiful building, known as Casa de Hortelano (Hortelano’s House), located opposite the Cathedral of Albacete and characterized by an eclectic Gothic facade with green ceramic tiles.
Daniel Rubio was at that time the municipal architect. He designed the disappeared Food Market, built with an iron structure, floral decoration and a glass roof; the beautiful Music Pavilion of the Fair Avenue, with a refined Modernist style, and the emblematic building where is settled the Gran Hotel.
Outside Albacete, the architect also left his mark and his good work in the Plan of expansion of Málaga, in 1929, and in the building of Caja de Ahorros de Antequera, in 1932, based on a unique mixture of mannerist, baroque and neoclassic elements in combination with more modern ones, with a general approach of a building in one corner and with particular attention to his monumental chamfer.
Returning to La Casa de Hortelano, the building, occupying 450 square meters, eventually became a Casa Cuna (Children’s Hospital) and, in the eighties, when the building was acquired by the Architectural Heritage of the City Council of Albacete, it became the headquarters of the Social Council of the University of Castilla-La Mancha and it was later the headquarters of the Local Police.
The last remodeling of the building until the present day is according to the project led by the Sevillian architects Miguel Hernádez Valencia, Esther López Martín, Juliane Potter and Francisco José Domínguez Saborido, who in 2003 presented their proposal for the facilities of the Albacete Municipal Museum of Knives and Cutting Tools. The renovation works began in 2004.
