Description

The Necker-Enfants Malades Hospital occupies an entire block on Boulevard Montparnasse. The architect Philippe Gazeau found himself confronted with a clinic complex dating back to the 18th century which had been successively extended over the course of time without a coherent plan or guiding concept. New functional requirements and medical departments had each necessitated further additions that paid little heed to the external appearance and resulted in increasingly incoherent medical processes. As such, the site of the Necker Hospital reflected a process of successive expansion to provide ever more specialised medical care that was gradually filling the site.

The architect formulated his objectives as follows: “The basic idea of the redesign is that it should achieve three things: it should, of course, function well, it should reorder the inner structure of the entire site and it should open the clinic to the city so that it becomes part of the existing quarter. We wanted to design an alternative to the usual hermetic, self-referential building complex.” A central theme was therefore the bundling, concentration and fusion of the parts, and the deteriorated state and technical obsolescence of many buildings made a fundamental reorganisation unavoidable. Apart from the historical substance, Gazeau left only one reference to more recent times on the site: the high chimney on which Keith Haring once sprayed one of his graffiti.

The new hospital complex not only has exceptionally compact floor plans but is also noticeably taller than its neighbours. This concentration of spaces in a taller building also made it possible to free up space to create a public green space (landscape architect: Pascal Cribier). The large but elegant structure comprises two separate sections: the building on the corner has a twin-walled façade with a concrete, aluminium panel and strip-window inner face and a glass outer face that covers the entire five-storey building in a vertical zigzag arrangement. The operating theatres are on the ground floor with small windows facing outwards – a novelty in France – while the upper floors house the hospital’s administration offices and doctors’ treatment and consultation rooms.

Next to the corner building is a second, more compact building along the Rue de Sèvres that likewise has extensive glazing on the ground floor. The Laennec building (named after the inventor of the stethoscope) houses the patient reception, as well as the patient rooms with a total of 404 beds. Above the basement and entrance floor, the building is clad with curtain walling. Its frosted glass sections arranged in an irregular pattern act as sun and privacy screens. The matt glass surfaces cause the entire surroundings to acquire a soft, unobtrusive brightness and emphasise the changing atmosphere and lighting conditions over the course of the day. The two buildings are connected at the rear by bridges between the upper floors. Although the facades of the two buildings differ in their aesthetic expression, the similarity of their glazed exteriors is complementary rather than contrasting. In the Laennec building, a long conservatory-like section on the ground floor houses a bamboo grove between the two glass facades along the street.

A series of “passages” run through the Laennec building, most notably the large passage along the street. The inner courtyard in the form of a glazed atrium with the reception rooms for patients connects to this “Rue intérieure” and provides visual contact with the Rue de Sèvres. This proximity to what is happening on the street, combined with natural illumination, conveys the impression of a miniature vibrant urban space, and this serves as the overall leitmotif for the entire complex. The passages and corridors have been given subdued, soothing colours and the majority of the patients’ rooms have a view of the sky. The layout of the rooms also means that adults can also stay and accompany their children while they are in the hospital.

Originally published in Bauwelt 37.2015, pp. 16-23, abridged and edited for Building Types online, translated by Julian Reisenberger

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