ABSTRACT

The mode of power and knowledge operating in the spaces of education and play is also discernible in the postwar children hospital. The spatial arrangement of children’s therapeutic environments was informed by the perception that the child’s emotions deserve attention as much as clinical and administrative concerns, which hitherto were paramount in determining their layout. In this respect, the postwar children hospital becomes an exception to the general trend in hospital design, since the attempt to adjust its environment to the specific, distinct subjectivity of the child led to the development of a child-centered approach to health care buildings, an unprecedented development which will be the focus of this chapter. The children hospital also entails a revision of current narratives of hospital design in England, which criticize the functional approach of the postwar period for being neither patient-focused nor sufficiently supportive of the users’ well-being (Francis et al. 2008:49).