Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 5 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 9 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 8 ©Photo: Paul Ott

Works #811

Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of GrazRealized

Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner Architektur ZT GmbH

Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner Architektur ZT GmbH

Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 1 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 2 Side Map
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 3 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 4 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 5 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 6 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 7 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 8 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ear, Nose & Throat Clinic, University Hospital of Graz thumbnail 9 ©Photo: Paul Ott
Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner Architektur ZT GmbH

Ernst Giselbrecht + Partner Architektur ZT GmbH

Location Graz, Styria, Austria
Year 2000
Categories Architectural Design  >  Medical facilities

Description

One of the great strengths of Graz provincial hospital lies in its spacious, loosely-packed arrangement of buildings set in amongst greenery. Even after 90 years of history, this setting still allows individual clinics to be raised to the latest state of the art in terms of medical facilities.

The intention is that the ENT clinic’s new treatment building should serve to concentrate facilities for outpatients and ambulance access along with everything that modern technology can offer; four operating theatres and a complex building services floor. The new building will be placed on the rear of the symmetrical art nouveau pavilion, given that the latter’s listed status forbade any more invasive development. A glazed transept provides access for all floors, with a second connecting element and new main entrance in the form of a porch structure directed towards visitors.

Architecture and medical equipment both give an equally technoid impression in functionally defined buildings, expressing themselves in the cold language of scientific efficiency. Yet this extension sets itself a challenge way over and above functional optimisation, namely to drive back the dominance of technology by means of spatial composition and aesthetics that focus on the patient, offering space whilst also calming anxiety. The ingredients for this atmospheric enhancement are materials, lighting and proportioning. Thus the outpatients’ waiting area is generously sized, naturally lit and opens out to the south onto a garden terrace. The treatment cubicles are integrated in a single block, free-standing within the room and counteracting the otherwise conventional sterility by virtue of their bright red colour.

Individual working conventions are the medical norm in units such as operating theatres. This includes the strict separation of corridors for patients and for personnel, though the latter brightly-lit outward-facing space is well suited for use at break times or a view of the greenery. There is no view inward. The skin of the building, consisting of principally horizontal, white painted metal sheets contains perforated slats at window level, and these filter incident light. They are moveable and can be controlled individually, elevating them well above simple functionality. Performing as a “slat ballet”, a pointed description coined by the architectural critic Christian Kühn, they give the impression of a living, breathing building that can determine its own appearance.

(Text: DI Karin Tschavgova)


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