Med/Architecture: the Typological evolution of Paradoxical Buildings

Abstract

“The challenge for all of us is to look back at history but envision the path ahead. There seems to be no question that our future depends on this vision” (Guenther, Vittori, 2008). This sentence summarizes the revolution that is happening in the world of healthcare architecture since few years. The development of the design of new hospital buildings is growing as well as the interest for the specific field. Flexibility, adaptability, cost effectiveness, standardization are just some of the criteria to which a new hospital nowadays has to respond. However, the architectonical research with the development of new plans for large hospitals is still prerogative of the northern European countries. In the southern countries of Europe the attention for this sector is still too much neglected and the solutions obsolete. Moreover, in this field often the architectonical solutions are the expression of political choices. In the Contemporary Age hospitals became complex bulwarks of science and medical technology. The era of designing them as techno-buildings has finished and Architecture is moving towards patient-oriented solutions, looking back at old and simpler typologies. However hospitals still remain paradoxical buildings. They have to be small in order to be more human and large and general for cost effectiveness. They have to be more open in their spatial layout, but also safe in order to avoid the spread of infections. They have to contain a high number of facilities and at the same time decentralize secondary departments in order to reduce the costs. This paper aims at analyzing some of the architectonical trends on going in hospital architecture, by looking back at the historical evolution of their typologies.