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Docomomo Journal 62 (2020/1)

Docomomo International is launching docomomo journal 62 – Cure and Care.
This issue of Docomomo Journal allows us to analyze and understand how the healthcare has been a stimulating topic on the core of Modern Movement architecture. Due to COVID-19, we face an unprecedented situation, and now more than ever, urban sanitary measures as well health care buildings are a guarantee of civilization.
The theme of docomomo journal 62 could not be more relevant.

EDITORIAL

Health at the core of Modern Movement Architecture
BY ANA TOSTÕES

I write this editorial, emotionally immersed in the COVID-19 pandemic, to announce that docomomo Journal 62 is dedicated to the issue of health and healthcare facilities, entering the realm of “hygiene” with the goal of debating the process of modernization as a medical procedure. When we started working on this, some months ago, with the collaboration of experts who have generously reflected on these matters – academics, thinkers, critics, architects, historians, and urbanists – we could not have imagined the topic would be so relevant to what everyone is now going through. The “Cure and Care” theme could not have been more timely!
The aim of this docomomo Journal 62 is to debate the healthcare agenda as a fascinating topic at the conceptual core of Modern Movement architecture. Investigation into healthcare facilities involves dealing with multiple spheres beyond the technological, physical and psychological. Nowadays, the growing emphasis on wellbeing goes beyond the seminal ideas that modern buildings were cleansing machines, or that modern architecture and urbanism were shaped by bacteria. Presenting some stimulating philosophically-orientated essays, this journal makes a link between the Modern Movement and what we have entitled the “Cure and Care” concept, connecting health and the environment, body and design. Considering healthcare buildings and their role in the welfare policy of societies, the discussion addresses future challenges, driven by developments in technology and medicine, envisaging a key role for healthcare facilities in ensuring a sustainable built environment.
In the last 50 years, poverty and famine have declined, whereas healthcare, education and emancipation have improved significantly worldwide. All this was possible because of modernity’s faith in scientific and technological innovation. Yet, this striking progress has also produced some incredibly damaging effects. Efforts to renew the world, using pre-existing structures, run counter to an obsession with the new, which still dominates our behavior. On an historical, cultural and social level, the development of appropriate techniques of conservation and rehabilitation for a sustainable built environment, includes reflecting on “Cure and Care” structures. Furthermore, a wider outlook is needed on the complexity of curing and caring in the 21st century, which addresses the issue of sustainability beyond its material boundaries, and considers larger societal concerns, particularly those related to cultural concepts, the sense of belonging and identity. As health becomes a central focus of political debate, the question arises whether architects, engineers and planners are able to follow the social and medical experts, in seeking a new disciplinary and political agenda to deal with the innovations in medical science and technology.
Celebrating 150 years since the birth of Tony Garnier (1869-1948) docomomo highlights this innovative heritage, focusing mainly on healthcare facilities under threat. Publishing in these dramatic times, docomomo International honours the memory of Vittorio Gregotti (1927-2020), who passed away this March due to COVID-19. Moreover, docomomo International pays homage to all the victims and their families in this unprecedented situation, by symbolically publishing an article on the Spanish Pantheon in Rome (1957) designed by José Maria García de Paredes (1924-1990), Javier Carvajal (1926-2013) and sculptor Joaquín García Donaire (1926-2003).
I would like to thank and acknowledge the commitment of Daniela Arnaut, who acted as guest editor of this “Cure and Care” issue. Her work and perseverance were shared by the authors who contributed generously with their knowledge and research. Lastly, it is time to highlight an absolutely exceptional Modern Movement building – the Sanatorium Zonnestraal (Jan Duiker and Bernard Bijvoet,1925-1931), which has stood as a benchmark for docomomo since its creation. To consolidate the global status of this healthcare facility and modern monument, it was magnificently restored and, as Bruno Reichlin argues, the architects (Hubert-Jan Henket and Wessel de Jonge, 2001-2009) successfully recreated its original splendour (Paul Meurs; Marie-Thérèse van Thoor (eds.), Sanatorium Zonnestraal. The history and restoration of a modern monument, Rotterdam, Nai Publishers, 2010).

Notes

[1] The project Cure and Care – the rehabilitation is a Portuguese National Fund (FCT-Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia) research project (PTDC/ATPAQI/ 2577/2014) hosted by the Instituto Superior Técnico (IST) – Centre for Innovation in Territory, Urbanism, and Architecture (CiTUA) with the aim of studying healthcare facilities built in Portugal in the 20^th century.

Introduction

Cure and care at the cradle of innovation
BY DANIELA ARNAUT

Essays

The Bacterial Clients of Modern Architecture
BY BEATRIZ COLOMINA AND MARK WIGLEY

The Ur-Forms of Modernism. On 19^th Century Hospitalized and Hygienic Dimensions of Architecture
BY GEORGES TEYSSOT

Landscape architecture according to Olmsted: beyond purifying the air, pacifying the mind
BY CATHERINE MAUMI

Modern Hospitals and Cultural Heritage
BY COR WAGENAAR

Sanatoriums in Europe: Build Heritage and Transformation Strategies
BY PHILLIPE GRANDVOINNET

The New Deal Infrastructure of New York: The Hospitals of Isadore Rosenfield
BY CHARLES GIRAUDET

Architecture at the service of care: France-USA Memorial Hospital of Saint-Lô
BY DONATO SEVERO

Seven notes on the program and design of healthcare buildings’ rehabilitation
BY PAULO PROVIDÊNCIA

Demedicalize Architecture
BY GIOVANNA BORASI AND MIRKO ZARDINI

Heritage in danger

Hôpital Edouard Herriot à Lyon, Tony Garnier, 1933
BY PHILIPPE DUFIEUX

Documentation issue

Charles Fulton: the regional reach of modernism in Australia
BY PAUL SANDERS AND MARISSA LINDQUIST

Spanish Pantheon in Rome. A Permanent Abode
BY ÁNGELA GARCÍA DE PAREDES

Book reviews

Appendix

This docomomo Journal was done with the special collaboration of CiTUA [Centre for Innovation in Territory, Urbanism, and Architecture].

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