Abstract

Half of the nineteenth century brought significant changes in the organization and operation of hospitals. The on-coming takeover by the state and its agencies tasks related to medical care resulted in a significant jump in quantitative and almost massive construction of new hospitals. Several hospitals and nursing homes functioned on a relatively small area of a city or town, with different specializations and profiles of care. The specificity of the these facilities meant that both their location and spatial arrangement had a strong impact on the further urban development. Urban layouts of cities and towns, often with medieval roots, were not ready to accept the assumptions of the hospital complex, which required the location of specific sizes and specifications. Nineteenth-century views on the functioning of the hospital, supported by developing the natural sciences, led to the formation of assumptions hospital almost self-sufficient. From the point of view of urban hospitals even self-created structures that are “cities within a city”. Such systems and assumptions developed durable and often for several more years, until the experience of the second half of the twentieth century led to the creation of a centralized model of hospital. In the urban scale, meant that teams with lower rank lost their original character and blend in with the structure of the city, enriching them with another public buildings, together with the adjacent square – a former hospital garden. The paper shows the hospitals influences on development, spatial relationship and communication on selected polish examples.

Authors (3)