ABSTRACT
The chapter follows the development of the hospital site from buildings set in healing gardens to fortresses for health, and thence to the modernist healthcare campus, considering aspect and functional efficiency in site planning and the landscaping of the modern hospital. The hospital as a grand edifice in a garden was replaced by the idea of a completely contained health city; the rise of the automobile meant the imposing portico was replaced by the porte-cochère, ambulances arrived at specially designed entrances and internal roads, ramps and tunnels became important veins by which essential services were delivered. More and more specialised building functions to service the modern hospital meant the hospital site plan became increasingly complex. Ideas of amenity were also changing: landscape’s curative associations as pleasant spaces in which to perambulate were diminished as the terrace and balcony became the sanctioned places in which patients were exposed to fresh air and sunlight. Distance from noise and smell further confirmed the modern hospital’s new spatialisation. A new vision of the hospital emerged: it was to be an efficient system – a highly networked diagram – with the whole site now considered as a fully integrated healing machine.
