Alliance Researches Boston's Modern Hospitals

By Michelle Oliver Gutierrez

On Monday, June 13, 2011 the Boston Preservation Alliance presented the findings of a “reconnaissance” survey of some of Boston’s Modern hospitals at Docomomo/New England’s monthly meeting. The study focused on five hospital complexes that showcase the Modernist aesthetics for which Boston has become well-known, especially smooth concrete and glass facades.

The Alliance has engaged in this research in an effort to raise awareness about Boston’s exceptional Modern architecture and to deepen public understanding of the ways in which these buildings tell stories of the social changes, technological advancements and aesthetic preferences during the era in which they were constructed. The Alliance understands that in order to provide the best possible medical care Boston’s Hospitals must evolve and regularly upgrade their facilities. Our research aims to identify some of the unique features of the city’s Modern hospital buildings in an effort to better inform decisions about changes to them. In so doing, we hope that change can be managed in ways that reinforce the stories the buildings have to tell about the hospitals’ pioneering, internationally-recognized advancements in medicine, science and patient care.

The design of hospitals during this time placed an unprecedented focus on patient comfort, incorporated new technologies, especially in telecommunications and efficient internal transportation systems, and expected future developments and expansions by abandoning the traditional vertical zoning of functions in favor of the horizontal. While the Modern exteriors of these buildings are mostly unchanged since their construction, little remains of the original interiors, which have been replaced with the latest in contemporary hospital design.

A typical example of early 1950s Modernism, the Veteran’s Affairs Hospital in Jamaica Plain (1951-1952) was designed by the US Army Corps of Engineers, supervised by Col. H.J. Woodbury and resident engineer J.E. Eklund. The steel-frame building is clad in corrugated metal, and rises to thirteen stories. The design of the building ensured that every room received natural light, and incorporated an array of services including libraries, shops, recreation halls, a chapel, occupational therapy rooms, a dining hall and canteen, as well as a broadcasting room. Apart from the three-story addition in 1999 by Payette Associates, the original ambulatory care facility has remained largely unchanged, and is beginning to show signs of aging.

Between 1958-1976, The Architects Collaborative, headed by the famed Walter Gropius worked on the long-range planning and design of several buildings for two major hospitals in Boston, The Children’s Medical Center in Longwood and Tufts Medical Center in Chinatown. The work by The Architects Collaborative is easily distinguishable from earlier buildings on the medical center campuses by its extensive use of cast concrete.

At the Children’s Medical Center, these buildings include the Fegan out-patient tower (eleven stories, 1967), John F. Enders Pediatric Research Laboratory (fifteen stories, 1970), and The Children’s Inn, a multi-facility complex that included the twenty-five story apartment tower, a six-story motel and a large public plaza (1968). As one of the most incompatible changes to the complex, the subtle architectural drama that the original buildings achieved in the Children’s Inn has been obscured by the flashing colors of the recently added Food Court, and the encrustation of a standard Best Western façade.

At the Tufts Medical Center, the two modern buildings are the School of Dental Health (1972), and Proger out-patient center (1973). A large five-story vertical addition to the School of Dental Health was completed in 2010 by Architectural Resources Cambridge, along with a new entrance to the center. In its 2010-2020 Master Plan, Tufts proposed the demolition of several older buildings adjacent to Proger, as well as a complete redesign of the buildings’ Washington Street façade to “activate the pedestrian realm” by the use of a variety of colors, and textures placed over the fire existing concrete surfaces.

Perhaps most striking in their development of completely flat exterior surfaces of unbroken concrete and glass horizontal planes are two buildings by different incarnations of the Perry, Dean and Partners firm: the Faulkner Hospital in Jamaica Plain by Perry, Dean and Stewart (1968-1976) and the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Barbara and Melvin Nessel Cancer Services building on Storrow Drive, designed by Charles Rogers for Perry, Dean, Stahl and Rogers (1969-1975).

Construction of the new Faulkner Hospital was enveloped in controversy from the beginning. Strong opposition to the scale of the development by neighbors who felt the development was out of scale with the single story, residential context delayed the project by thirty-one months of legal battles. Costing twice as much as was originally estimated, when the Faulkner finally did open, severe financial difficulties put the future of the newly constructed hospital into serious question. The Faulkner’s design was revolutionary in following the ideas proposed by the architect Gordon Friesen, who called for exclusively single-patient rooms, and did away with nurses’ stations replacing them with smaller supply closets (Nursevers) in every room. Extremely luxurious and spacious, the hospital used to feature a large roof-deck and airline-style galleys on every patient floor.

MGH’s eight-story Cancer Services building, originally the William G. Cox Cancer Management Center until 1997, is an excellent study in showcasing the possibilities of different materials. The building is defined by five modules of concrete and glass, and four large metal columns. It is set diagonally on a base of red brick that fans out to create seating space along the building, and eventually rises into an undulating brick wall. Apart from the rounded brick, other great details include rounded glass at the corners of the building, exposed piping on the inside, and concrete beams that protrude past the columns so that the joints of the building can be read from the outside.

For more information about the Alliance’s work relating to Modern building advocacy, please contact Sarah D. Kelly, executive director, at skelly@bostonpreservation.org.