Tag: Spring 2015
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The historical hospital of Santa Chiara in Pisa
Paola LenziGianfranco NatalePisa, Italy The historical Ospedale di Santa Chiara (Santa Chiara’s Hospital), located beside the beautiful Square of Miracles, traces its roots to A.D 325, when the Emperor Constantine issued a set of rules that imposed Christian charity, relief of the poor, and the construction of a hospital in each city. The emperor wanted…
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The Bonifacio Hospital: Reforming psychiatric hospital care
Panagiota KitsantasFairfax, Virginia, United States In 1369-1377 Bonifacio Lupi, mayor of Florence and Captain of the People, founded the Bonifacio Hospital (Ospedale di Bonifacio) dedicated to St. John the Baptist. In the sixteenth century, the hospital admitted patients suffering from syphilis, known as the “French disease,” spread by troops of Charles VII returning from Naples.…
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Roosevelt Hospital
Noah DeLoneNew York, United States The stretch of land between West 58th and West 59th street in Manhattan, abutted by 9th avenue, is not just a hospital, but a philosophical and humanitarian inheritance set into motion by its founder, James Roosevelt. Much of the life of James Roosevelt has been lost to history; much can…
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A lesson in horizontality: El Hospital San Vicente de Paúl in Medellin, Colombia
Moisés EnghelbergNew York, United States This is not the story about another hospital, rebuilt from rubble after an earthquake. It is not even a story about perseverance, as much as it is about putting the pieces back together. It is also a story about peculiarity and geometry. The Hospital San Vicente de Paúl in Medellin,…
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Baghdad Medical City
Lynn SadlerPittsboro, North Carolina, United States Can humans build and destroy simultaneously? Can they erect a gigantic, sprawling hospital complex as bombs drop, scud missiles home in, and anti-aircraft fire fills the air with flak? The Medical City of Central Baghdad perhaps cleanses some of our views of history. Few of us are aware that…
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The Albert Schweitzer Hospital in Lambaréné, Gabon
Judith WagnerMunich, Germany Welcome to the jungle It is a sultry day in equatorial Africa. The oppressive heat stifles all but the most necessary conversation between the few individuals perched on a wooden plank of the canoe floating along the vast lazy stream. On the banks of the Ogooué, lush vegetation drifts past. The monkeys’…
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The hospital on Profanity Hill
Josephine EnsignSeattle, United States When Harborview Hospital in Seattle opened its doors to patients in 1931, advertising posters portrayed the striking fifteen-story Art Deco building as a shining beacon of light, the great cream-colored hope on the hill overlooking the small provincial town clinging to the shores of Puget Sound. “Above the brightness of the…
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The Klinikum Aachen
Joerg AlbrechtChicago, Illinois, United States The Klinikum of the Rhenish-Westfalian Technical University in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) evokes reactions in everyone who sees it. As seen from the nearby rolling pastures of the Dutch border, its towers abruptly obstruct the countryside like a beached aircraft carrier. Even closer, viewed against an adjacent medium-size concrete city block, the…
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The history of Bethlem Hospital
Janice TiaoPennsylvania, Philadelphia, United States Perhaps no hospital has made its mark on human imagination as much as Bethlem Hospital, located outside London. The first hospital in England to specialize in the care of the insane, Bethlem gave birth to the caricature of the lunatic asylum as a place filled with chained patients in filthy…