Excerpts from the elective thesis
© Laure Nashed
› 2016, Elective thesis at the Chair of Architectural Theory of Prof. Dr. Ákos Moravánszky at ETH Zurich.
› The topic of my elective thesis represents a subject I have been interested in for a long time: the design intention of hospital façades.
The following is an excerpt from the abstract: «Hospitals have been an integral part of our cities and our society since over two centuries. In its development, the «House for the ill» has been influenced by medical, economic, political and social considerations and changes. A brief overview of the origins and development of this functional building forms the basis of the paper. […]
Subsequently, the focus of the elective paper is placed on the analysis of two Swiss hospitals: the now called Klinikum 1 of the Universitätsspital Basel (University Hospital Basel) and the main building of the Universitätsspital Zürich (University Hospital Zurich). Both hospitals were built in the middle of the 20th century. A time in which the space programmes greatly increased in scope and complexity. It is precisely this change in the task set for architects and its impact on subsequent hospital architecture that will be highlighted in the analysis. […]
Due to the growing demands on hospital buildings, the focus was increasingly placed on the functionality and efficiency of the construction. The hypothesis of my elective thesis is that a negation of architecture, as the creation of an aesthetic building, increasingly emerged. I name this with the term «non-architecture». This negation, I argue, had its peak in the emergence of the grey large-scale clinics of late modernism. Taking into account the theses of cultural theory, the focus is placed on today’s hospital architecture. Assessments by various architects, editors and hospital experts on the current significance of aesthetics for hospital construction form a concluding evaluation […].»
› 2016, Elective thesis at the Chair of Architectural Theory of Prof. Dr. Ákos Moravánszky at ETH Zurich.
› The topic of my elective thesis represents a subject I have been interested in for a long time: the design intention of hospital façades.
The following is an excerpt from the abstract: «Hospitals have been an integral part of our cities and our society since over two centuries. In its development, the «House for the ill» has been influenced by medical, economic, political and social considerations and changes. A brief overview of the origins and development of this functional building forms the basis of the paper. […]
Subsequently, the focus of the elective paper is placed on the analysis of two Swiss hospitals: the now called Klinikum 1 of the Universitätsspital Basel (University Hospital Basel) and the main building of the Universitätsspital Zürich (University Hospital Zurich). Both hospitals were built in the middle of the 20th century. A time in which the space programmes greatly increased in scope and complexity. It is precisely this change in the task set for architects and its impact on subsequent hospital architecture that will be highlighted in the analysis. […]
Due to the growing demands on hospital buildings, the focus was increasingly placed on the functionality and efficiency of the construction. The hypothesis of my elective thesis is that a negation of architecture, as the creation of an aesthetic building, increasingly emerged. I name this with the term «non-architecture». This negation, I argue, had its peak in the emergence of the grey large-scale clinics of late modernism. Taking into account the theses of cultural theory, the focus is placed on today’s hospital architecture. Assessments by various architects, editors and hospital experts on the current significance of aesthetics for hospital construction form a concluding evaluation […].»
