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- Title
Västerås femte lasarett -- en studie i 1920-talets svenska sjukhusbyggande.
- Authors
Lundström, Bo
- Abstract
In the 1920s, hospital building in Sweden underwent a period of successive change. Ever since the first hospital guidelines were formalised in the 1840s, hospitals had been built according to the corridor system. This developed from central corridors and large dormitories to a system with side corridors, lit by daylight, with smaller wards in a row. The impetus for this change in planning and building was the revolutionary medical development of bacteriology and a better understanding of both antiseptics, or bacteri cidal treatment, and the significance of aseptic or bacteria-free, sterile environments. From now on, watchwords included densification and concentration. It took until the 1920s before hospital layouts changed once more, when central corridors were reaccepted. At the same time, plans became more complex and hospital buildings increased in height. Inspiration came from the USA, where high property prices, new building techniques and progressive attitudes to medical hygiene gave rise to skyscraper solutions and their accompanying complex layouts. It was these principals -- albeit in more diffuse form than in the USA -- that Swedish hospital architects now began to apply. When Ernst Stenhammar, one of the architects who specialised in hospitals, designed the new Västerås county hospital, he therefore chose a complex layout with central corridors: a planning principle that was regarded -- not least by medical experts -- as modern and fit for purpose. Because the hospital was never expanded or otherwise altered, despite proposals to this effect in the 1940s, Stenhammar's Västerås hospital remains Sweden's best-preserved example from the 1920s. The tall, central hospital building with its crowning ridge turret and projecting wings, which in style and form combine Vasa-era fortress architecture with strict, restrained 1920s classicism, was a style ideal that captured the zeitgeist and suited the nature of large institutions such as hospitals. Contemporaneous descriptions compare the complex to a stately home or palace. The interiors drew similar analogies, with their coffered ceilings, marbled walls, classical decor and vaulted communication tunnels. Yet all this was achieved in a manner that was neither grandiose nor pompous. The style of the interiors was restrained, for rather than being designed to overwhelm, the aim was to infuse a sense of well-being, while at the same time satisfying every medical need. Moreover, the hospital was built at a time when the least well-off lived in poverty. In contrast, the hospital aimed to provide each individual, regardless of social background, with beautiful and hygienic surroundings. This was the beginning of the concept of the Swedish wellfare ideal. As with all similar institutions at the time, the hospital patients and staff were subject to a highly institutionalised life of strict routines, order and discipline. These conditions prevailed until at least the 1960s. In addition, distinct social boundaries were drawn between doctors and nurses, and between white-uniformed staff and patients. The former was also reflected in the hospital's staff accommodation, where the majority of employees lived. Male staff were provided with flats or houses suitable for families. Conversely, nurses and other female staff lived in simpler, smaller homes, often without kitchen facilities. The old hospital was gradually recommissioned when the first phase of the new county hospital opened in 1968. Once empty, the old hospital slid into dereliction. For some time, demolition was seen as the only alternative, but this was avoided at the last minute. Its renovation, beginning in 2006 and completed in 2009, shows how former hospital buildings can be repurposed without entirely altering their erstwhile medical character.
- Subjects
SWEDEN; HOSPITAL buildings; MEDICAL bacteriology; CONSTRUCTION planning; REAL property sales &; prices; SOCIAL boundaries; SKYSCRAPERS; NURSING care facilities
- Publication
Bebyggelsehistorisk Tidskrift, 2021, Issue 80, p55
- ISSN
0349-2834
- Publication type
Article