[Closed] Elfin's Tuesday Architectural Appreciation Thread! Hospitals and that.

I used to live round the corner from here. Salford Eye Hospital. its a lovely building. Now converted to flats. Isn't everything nowadays?

[img] [/img]

Note: Free cathedral there Fred 😉

Now being replaced by this

[img] ?17%2F02%2F2011%2008%3A29%3A26%3A776[/img]

which looks quite intersting

Right, only pic I can find of this almshouse in Leominster - the bottom one here. Above the window there's a carving of an axe, and it says "He who gives away all before he is dead; let 'em take this 'atchet and knock 'em on the 'ead" Bit funny for a charity building I thought 🙂

[img] [/img]

Another extremely old almshouse in Hereford, the Coningsby Hospital from 1634.

[img] [/img]

And now all the way to the 20th century again, here's Cardiff Royal Infirmary (does not do it justice as a neo gothic giganticness)

[img] [/img]

And this is Llandough, Cardiff's other big hospital (other than the Heath that is). Built atop a hill with gardens and a lovely view to help the patients convalesce. Still a lovely place today 🙂

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

http://www.dago7.com/blog/blog7/The-Most-Incredible-Abandoned-Buildings-of-Mental-Asylums-In-England.html

Binners, where is the replacement for the old Salford Royal being built, or is that supposed to be what Hope will look like?

28dayslater is a great site for old derelict hospitals, well worth a look

[img] [/img]

Craiglockheart hopistal in Edinburgh - where the War poets ended up
[img] [/img]

Formerly Norfolk and Norwich hospital frontage.

I do believe the facade is being retained as it's listed, but a new development modern flats are being built behind.

[img] [/img]

My local:

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Oh dear, C_G fail. 😳

Bregante - Its being built on Oxford Road as part of MRI. The article is here:

[url= http://lookupmanchester.blogspot.com/2010/09/sheppard-robsons-design-for-manchester.html ]Manchester Eye Hospital[/url]

QVH East Grinstead. Home of the Guinea Pig Club.
[img] [/img]

Not an architectural gem, but McIndoe's magic had a very real impact on my life, so one that means a lot!

Big fan of Manchester's new children's hospital.

[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

Bright, light, colourful, exactly what is important for that kind of building.

UCL Cruciform building. Used to be a hospital that is in the shape of a cross on plan. I can't find any good photos, but it really is lovely with a great attention to detail. A very inefficient use of land area though so wouldn't be designed like that nowadays.

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

St George's Morpeth.

I grew up on the grounds of here my Dad worked there for years.

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

The Old Edinburgh Royal Infirmary:

[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Hmmm. Firefox keeps crashing when open a google searched image. Odd.

Hmm, thought this might be a challenging one. Hospitals are invariably built for a purpose, and not as great architectural statements, so it's difficult to find examples of much outstanding.

The range of styles and eras present in some of the larger hospitals is quite large though.

Royal London, Whitechapel:

[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

Guys:

[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

UCL:

[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

Not an architectural gem, but McIndoe's magic had a very real impact on my life, so one that means a lot!

The whole point of Tuesday AA is about buildings that have meaning to you, personally, and those which stand out for you. Don't matter how big, small, grand or modest they are. It's all about the appreciation of buildings.

[url= http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2094/2314500089_0dd99cae43_z.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2094/2314500089_0dd99cae43_z.jp g"/> ?zz=1[/img][/url]
[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/leecollis/2314500089/ ]Soup Kitchen[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/leecollis/ ]Lee Collis[/url], on Flickr

I disagree with you there elf - older hospitals are some very nice buildings with great architectural detail such as the tilework - useless as modern hospitals mind you.

Old Edinburgh royal
[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

The funkiest hospital on cbeebies
[img] [/img]

[img] [/img]

Horton psychiatric hospital Epsom. I worked there for a year with a subcontractor - a truly lovely hospital set in really beautiful grounds, which was built by the London County Council (1903). Some of the work required reference to copies of the original construction drawings, and as a sign of how the English language evolves, all the drawings referred to Horton "Mental" Hospital. Whilst working there I discovered just endearing psychiatric patients can be. Sadly it is no more - psychiatric patients are now given pills and told to fend for themselves.

I have failed, I can find no pictures of hekilopters flying over cool looking hospitals. 🙁

Here you go Emma, just for you; a hekilopter flying over a hospital. 😀
[img] [/img]

Elf, that was why I posted it. The work of McIndoe gave someone I loved dearly a real life. That makes the place truly special. I regularly pop by Archie's old place to tip the hat at the blue plaque on the wall.

Heh! Now we're talking! 😀

The London Air ambulance, with Guy's hospital just visible in the distance:

[img] [/img]

HEMS landing on the helipad of the Royal London Hospital:
[img] [/img]

A mate of mine, as a photography student, once managed to get permission to go up onto the pad to take some photos for his project. To his complete and utter astonishment, thery then asked him if he'd like to go up in it, as they were performing a training exercise.

The jammy, jammy bastard! 😮

Elf - do me a favour pretty please. My pics were tiny, could you use your Googling skills and find some larger ones please?

Assuming you know where it is. 😀

Elf, that was why I posted it. The work of McIndoe gave someone I loved dearly a real life. That makes the place truly special.

Sometimes it don't matter so much what a place looks like, it's what it means to us that's important.

I was born here. It's nowt special really, architecturally. A bit flipping significant to me though!

[img] [/img]

Was disused for many years, now converted into flats. At least it's still there though.

Kewl, how come google let me down today? It's gone tits up obviously 😕

Nice chopper captain 😀

Nice one Elf.
Here's my local one, the Wiltshire Air Ambulance flying past Great Western Hospital, Swindon.
Thanks to this particular Paraffin Parrot my brother survived a bad motorbike accident.
[img] [/img]

No contribution from me this week as the only hospitals that mean anything to me, St Chad's Birmingham where I was born and the Ladywood Birmingham Children's hospital where I spent a couple of weeks as a child, are no longer working hospitals and Google images gives no results.

Sad sign of the times 🙁

Emma, it's all about your search parameters, if you want a hekilopter over a hospital, look for an air ambulance.

Nice chopper captain

Thanks, petal... 😀

Ok, so using 'hekilopter flying over big hospital' might be a bit wordy then 😕

I'm only used to searching for lol cats so searching for pictures is new to me

@captain NP 😳

Oi! That's my chopper, not his!! 😡

Actually, something interesting about hopsitals:

The word 'Bedlam' originates from the first 'mental asylum', which was in the Bethlem hospital at a site near Bishopsgate. The hospital moved about quite a lot, and in 1815 moved into this building, which is now better known as something else:

[img] [/img]

Still associated with the madness of humanity though....

Baathalohhna, such a beatiful horizon

[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]
[img] [/img]

Oh actually it was countzeros chopper I was admiring, got confuddled. You have displayed a very nice chopper to though elfin.
Captain I take it back, your chopper stinks!!

EEEuuuuwww... smelly chopper! 😡

Nasty. You wanna get it seen to, Flashy. Centre for Tropical Medicine might be a start... 😉

[img] [/img]

Free cathedral in the background too! 🙂

Emma, I'll have you know it's very clean at the moment.

For architecture:

Hospital de Sant Pau, Barcelona

[img] [img]

Maggie's Center in Inverness:

[img] [img]

And for personal reasons - Great Ormond Street Hospital (an amazing place that is both heart wrenchingly tragic and wonderfully cheerful and positive, with the best staff in the world)

[img] [img]

No idea if these images will work - I am officially an IT numpty 🙂

Maggie's Centre, Dundee. Frank Gehry

[img] [/img]

Nope, they didn't work ... I am now confirmed as an IT incompetent.

Fortunately one of them is the same as the picture from Brakes - love the building in his / her second picture.

Mis use and poor handling causes such problems I believe. Im also told that every time you fly solo god kills a kitten.

You missed the / out in /img

[img] [/img]

Maggie's Center in Inverness:

[img] [/img]

And for personal reasons - Great Ormond Street Hospital (an amazing place that is both heart wrenchingly tragic and wonderfully cheerful and positive, with the best staff in the world)

[img] [/img]

Thanks TJ!

Trevalyn hospital , wher i was born in Wrexham is now flats,

War memorial hospital in wrexham now a college,

West cheshire hospital, now countess, in chester, nearly all gone, and replaced with housing,

Chester royal infirmary, gone, now housing,

City hospital, now gone for housing,

Walton Hospital, now disapearing,

Birkenhead maternity, now gone housing,

Birkenhead hospital, now gone,

Heswall hospital(2) now gone, one is the site of a tesco.

Seems as if hospitals are getting knocked down,and replaced, people mustnt be il so much now.

warton - Member

28dayslater is a great site for old derelict hospitals, well worth a look

I've been round Hellingly it's not far from me though I hear they've started to demolish it for development now. Was quite a strange place to be, absolutely massive. There were 5 of us and we decided to split up and see what it was like on your own. New pants scary! No phone reception and in the dormitory section it's designed so sound doesn't travel, which isn't great when you're trying to find your mates. Some brilliant graff though:

[img] [/img]

Flashy; that's only because you've bin scrubbing it furiously with a wire brush and neat Dettol....

Flashy; that's only because you've bin scrubbing it furiously with a wire brush and neat Dettol....

Greenaways Maternity Hospital, Chippenham; where I wuz born. Not there anymore, the site's a business park, one outfit's involved in lots of space missions.

I wooduv thought you'd be paying a discrete visit to a place down this street, Flashy:

[img] [/img]

😉

Project - old hospitals are lovely buildings not suitable for healthcare in the 21st century.

mcmoonter - all the 'Maggie's Centre's' are architecturally beautiful buildings. It's good to see that much care going into creating life-affirming and aesthetic environments for cancer patients.

TandemJeremy - Member
Project - old hospitals are lovely buildings not suitable for healthcare in the 21st century.

Posted 17 minutes ago # Report-Post

Sadly the new ones dont seem to be either,

I agree TJ

Project - old hospitals are lovely buildings not suitable for healthcare in the 21st century.

I suspect that applies more in cases where the hospital requirements are such, that it requires a high tech building.

Many small local cottage hospitals can often supply a local need (including to elderly patients or those with family close by) which large far away high tech hospitals don't need to match. And I can't help feeling that beautiful grounds and gardens in a psychiatric hospital might outweigh the need for computer floors.

I'm sure that large modern high tech hospitals are vital though.

~Ernie - even in less demanding settings. Open wards are bad for cross infection risk, divide them up you get awkward spaces. Not enough toilets, moving and handling safely is difficult, never enough storage, lots of issues. too many steps, lousy inefficient heating and ventilation systems. Even with a complete interior strip out and rebuild they remain compromised and its as cheap to build new buildings.

A pleasant environment is therapeutic tho no doubt about it. Trees and space is important. Local cottage hospitals are good but need new buildings

[url= http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5182/5636006524_12683df171_z.jp g" target="_blank">http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5182/5636006524_12683df171_z.jp g"/> [/img][/url]

TJ - there's Ulrich's research on the postive effect that a view of 'greenspace' (ie trees etc) had on recovery times from surgery. Not sure how many city centre hospitals are in green environments though, or how the relative importance of that sits with the quality of the building, or the level of high tech?

Bodelwydan hospital near Rhyl, was going to be knocked down, now being stripped of asbestos and being refurbished.

I worked in a large Psychiatric hospital, lovely grounds and lawns, plenty of space, etc, built in 1829, fantasic planning of the building, now being demolished and some parts being converted to offices for paper pushers.

Oh th patients sent into care in the comunity , bag of tablets and left to wander the streets.

Single bed rooms are the way to go but they take up more space, and cost considerably more,

I wooduv thought you'd be paying a discrete visit to a place down this street, Flashy:

Where is that?

I was born here:
[img] [/img]
I think...... the labour ward was actually in the tin sheds at the back and it's been done out since I got shoved into the world.

Spent mucho time here as a kiddie too... [img] [/img]
Grim, in every way possible 🙁

Edit: actually I think I might have been born in Gloucester hospital too, I'll have to ask my mum.

It's Harley St, Emma. Where posh folk go to have their, well, you know, 'infections' seen too in discrete clinics... 😉

Another pic of the Gherkin. 😕 Is that a hospital on the right? I don't know about that one.

Lots of old hospital buildings have inadequate disability access, and only staircases in most parts. Installing new-type stuff like large lifts, and ventilation systems and stuff can be prohibitively expensive, as the old buildings are properly solidly built, and a nightmare to adapt to modern requirements. Sadly, it's often easier to knock them down or sell them off and build from new.

Loony Bins are often pretty nice buildings, for some reason:

[img] [/img]

Danvers State Asylum in Massachusetts.

lol, so we'll see you rocking out of there on a regular basis then?

This thread is proper depressing, I've just Googled all the hospitals I've spent weeks in over the years and I'm in a right mood now 🙁

Can't you do one on something happy? But not next week, I'm on holiday next week and too tight to pay for holiday Internets to log on 😯

Not me love. I'll go to Devons Road GUM clinic. If I need to. Which I don't so shut up! 😳

Actually I'm not sure if it's still open, that one...

Mate of mine had to go, a few years ago. Had to have the old 'metal umbrella' treatment. No, you really, really don't want to know. You really don't. 😥

Next week is prisons possibly Emma, so you might be well out of that one. 😯

Hospital in Arles by Van Gogh

[img] [/img]

Elf - my little pics were of Broadmoor. Incredible looking Victorian asylum. Would love to see inside but don't reckon that's going to happen!

pics were of Broadmoor. Incredible looking Victorian asylum. Would love to see inside but don't reckon that's going to happen!

Keep dragging home putrid badger cadavers, and you might be in luck 💡

😆

For CG:

[img] [/img]

I think she wants to see inside Elfie. I found this :

[img] [/img]

The armchairs don't look very comfy.

Royal Chelsea must get a mention.

Well they certainly kit out their patients nicely Mooly

[img] [/img]

Yeah, all this poor Broadmoor patient (seen here shaking hands with boxing legend Frank Bruno as broadcasting legend Sir Jimmy Saville looks on approvingly) gets is a nasty shell-suit. Where's the dignity in that, I ask you?

[img] [/img]

That bloke in the shell suit looks like a French HGV driver. They seem inordinately fond of shell suits for some reason.

That bloke in the shell suit looks like a French HGV driver

You do know that's the Yorkshire Ripper ?..........or am I missing an ironic comment ? 😕

Yes a HGV driver, but not French.

Next week is prisons possibly Emma, so you might be well out of that one.