Scholarly record

SPECIALIST PAVILION HOSPITALS OF WEST PRUSSIA IN THE 19TH CENTURY – EVOLUTION OF THE IDEA

A. Jaskiewicz-Sojak

Abstract

In the 19th century a number of modern curative and healthcare hospitals with complex functional and spatial layout were erected in the territory of the West Prussia. The largest of them were specialist centres treating physical and mental illnesses and disabilities: institutions for mentally ill patients (including addicts), epileptics and disabled people. Apart from the medical treatment section, there were administrative, social and technical facilities, all constituting parts of the complex. The hospital part was accompanied by entire neighbourhoods for doctors and other hospital workers, green areas (including parks and cemeteries) and farms. Because of that, the complexes were able to operate as self-sufficient towns ensuring living conditions for several hundred hospital patients and workers. The analysis of these large hospitals, their architecture and spatial arrangement, and comparative research show evolution of the pavilion hospitals idea during the 19th century. They also make it possible to show the studied Prussian hospital establishments in a broader context – compared to the whole of Germany and other European countries. The knowledge about this civilizational and spatial phenomenon is very important for the history of architecture in West Prussia (a German region in the past, a part of present Poland). Also recognising and acknowledging the heritage, which large Prussian hospitals presently constitute, has great impact on their conservation and preservation. Large hospitals in West Prussia were not hitherto subject of comprehensive research, except for the author’s doctoral dissertation.

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