ABSTRACT
The chapter outlines the search for an appropriately modern idiom for the modern hospital, one that would encourage trust in the institution but also represent its progressive nature. The influences of modernisation, seen in efficient programming, planning and servicing, met the social and aesthetic concerns of modernism to realise hospitals and sanatoriums that clearly signalled health, hygiene and progress. The impetus for the modern hospital was through its plan, with the pavilion superseded by the amalgamated block during the interwar decades. At the same time, European hospital designers embraced the new modernist idiom from the 1920s, with its pared-down aesthetics, clean lines and emphasis on healthy living. The open balcony became synonymous with the new idiom for the modern hospital. The combination of modern planning and modernist idiom was fostered by French, Australian and Swedish architects in the 1930s and 1940s before gaining wide acceptance post-World War II as the standard vocabulary. The turn towards subcutaneous treatments post-World War II and the increased use of air conditioning led to hospitals being hermetic sealed into a self-contained system, and the “matchbox on a muffin” typology. The quest for functional flexibility led to a series of experimental designs for hospitals in the 1960s and 1970s. This chapter examines the changing strategies employed by hospital architects across the twentieth century and highlights ideas of scientific progress and technical rigour, medical efficiency, and patient wellbeing.
