n n u u GROWING PAINS AT THE TEXAS MEDICAL CENTER \ l«l Paul HIMUT. Miu-.mil Richard Ingersoll The Medical Center is a microcosm of Houston, uring the past five years and chaos of their respective developed according to a defiant feudal logic... Houston's building cranes have metropolises. At the end of the century, migrated en masse from the once- however, hospitals were among the first booming downtown business buildings to be consciously identified as district three miles south to the functionalist; perhaps the original use of Texas Medical Center. With the the machine analogy in reference to bust in the oil-and-finance econ- architecture can be traced to Jean- omy, developers and builders Baptiste Le Roy. a scientist involved in turned their attention to the the rebuilding of the Hotel-Dicu in Paris, relative stability of the health-care who proposed in 1773 that "a hospital industries, and the majority of the 42 ward is really a machine for the treatment institutions located at the Texas of the sick."' The functionalist paradigm Medical Center have initiated major emphasized the importance of designing physical expansions costing more than from the inside out, with the unfortunate $1.5 billion. This will double the consequence that buildings were no building area within the world's largest longer conceived as parts of an urban (even though they are only 25 to40 years illness as a metaphor: to make such medical center. The name Texas Medical whole. In the 1920s, such Modernist old). The design of the new Veterans analogies is an injustice to those who arc Center refers to both a district of Hous- evangelists as Sigfricd Giedion and Administration hospital is indicative of not well. Yet to call it "Health City," as ton, known as the Medical Center, and an Richard Docker used medical buildings the attempt to mask functionalism: fancy does the TMC's president. Dr. Richard umbrella organization, which for the sake as exemplars of a new architecture. striated veneers and figural Postmodern Wainerdi, seems equally offensive to the of clarity will be called the TMC. The Hygienic regulation of light and air, corner towers cloak the highly flexible well. In some ways the area is a hospitals, research laboratories, schools, unobstructed circulation, and stripped- interior arrangement, which is based on microcosm of Houston, in whose urban and health organizations located at down simplicity for ease of maintenance interstitial floors. Mezzanine spaces eight development parts have been favored the Medical Center are federated but became axiomatic alternatives to feet high have been sandwiched between according to a defiant feudal logic with autonomous members of the TMC. The traditional architectural styles. all floors tor services and equipment so no concern for the whole. The conflict between individual institutions that adjustments for new technology- environmental anarchy for which the city and collective needs is clearly legible in Excepting the splendid machinery of the which have to be made every ten years- is famous has perhaps become too strong the uncoordinated urban pattern of an out-of-the-way Healing and Cooling can take place without interrupting day- a model, because even in the planning area that contains Houston's third most Services building, there are few external to-day operation. The static style of the circumstances of the Medical Center - significant concentration of buildings. signs of functionalism at the Medical exterior, which includes classical modil- where the TMC owns all the land and The TMC's power is negligible compared Center. Certainly the interiors of the lions and rustication, awkwardly con- requires nonprofit status of its tenants - to that of its members, and therein lies newer buildings are strictly governed by tradicts the dynamism of the interior, uncompromising, individualistic projects the chief deterrent to concerted planning functional demands, but they are vir- making the building seem clumsy. are pervasive. The member institutions, - no plan will work beyond the degree to tually unrelated to the exterior elevations. among which are 13 hospitals, two which the members themselves are medical schools, the city's department of Although the attention recently given to In general the buildings of the Medical willing to cooperate. health, and several unique institutions facades indicates some desire to address Center arc being transformed by an such as the New Age Hospice and the the public realm, the effect has not been accretive process that adds new features High School for Health Professions, are harmonious: each project competes with in response to the need for operational Some of the finest works of public in fact as much in competition with each the others in scale, material, color, and efficiency and new programmatic de- architecture in the Western world are other as they are in cooperation. style. The current batch of additions and mands, resulting in labyrinthine circula- medical buildings. The long porticos of Representatives meet with Wainerdi twice new buildings ranges in style from the tion on the inside and a confused jumble Brunetleschi's Ospedale degli Innoccnti monthly to discuss mutual problems, and slick thermometer look of Smith Tower to 'of volumes on the outside. An inchoate in Florence and Baccio Pontelli's although they arc able to concur on such the crusty. Postmodern mannerism of snarl of parking structures, unclear Ospedale di Santo Spirilo in Rome are urgent matters as storm drainage and Dunn Tower across the street, heavily points of egress, and difficult connections stunning examples of how hospital design power supplies, very little visible rusticated and trimmed with classical between structures make the Medical in 15th-century Italy contributed to the evidence of coordination results. The moldings. Both were built for Methodist Center an aesthetically and experientially orderly organization of urban space. In TMC has little authority over its powerful Hospital during the same period, yet they unpleasant place that seems to promote a the 17th century both Jules Hardouin- member institutions, nor would it want to look like rivals. Changes in medical feeling of illness rather than relieve it. Mansart's Hotel des Invalides and Sir jeopardize its tenuous standing by Christopher Wren's Royal Naval Hospital technology and hospital functions have occurred so quickly that both Ben Taub opposing their plans. Wainerdi's claim in Greenwich presented architecture of "Sick City" is, of course, an unfair that "each of the institutions is like a magnificent symmetry, geometrical and the Veterans Administration have moniker for the Medical Center, not found it more economical to build new store in a shopping center" is clearly a regularity, and hierarchical clarity that because it is imprecise, but for the reason delusion, since the management of a served as a critique of the density, filth. structures than to adapt existing ones thai Susan Sontag warns against using 6 Cite Spring-Summer 1989 New buildings in the Texas Medical Center il! Methodist I liiMtii.il, Dunn Tower, Smith Tower, Uoyd Jones Fillpol <t Associates, Ncurlock Tower, S. /. Morris Associates. 1980. Hen fault Hospital. CRSSirrine and Uem-lui- Morri.i*Archilects, to be completed in 1989. 1988, Methodist was also the client (with Century Metliodist was again ihc client (with Gerald D. Davies Sahni, to be completed in 1989. Ben Tuuh, Methodist is the elite hospital of the Medical Center, Development Corporation as developer) for this Hines as developer) for this earlier and less well one of two large hospitals operated by the Harris the first to offer valet parking, the millionaires' smooth-skinned 25-siory lower across Fannin, proportioned twin of Smith Tower. Black aerial County Hospital District for patients unable lo choice. The Dunn Tower addition is the most notable especially lor the elegance of its parking lubes link Scurlock to Smith and both lowers lo the afford private care, is in fact one of the most aesthetically pleasing work to come out of structure, which has twit ramps spiraling in opposite hospital complex. Scurlock's fourth floor houses the handsome of the new structures under construction. Morris'Archilects in a long time: its rustication directions at its base and beautifully taut aluminum Sid Richardson Institute for Preventive Medicine, The alternating brick bands lake their cue from and moldings are more sensitively proportioned slats drawn in horizontal patterns across its ten-story comprising both Che F.ddy (a restaurant named Cesar Pclli's work at Rice University, and the glared than the Wortham Theater Center's, and the volume. The stodgy interiors of the lower arc after oil-magnate donor Eddy Scurlock thai serves ;i stair lowers offer the promise of orientation from alternating rhythm of the windows is original and peculiarly incongruous with the no-nonsense gourmet menu approved by the American Heart inside the building. The original 196.1 building will Captivating. The new three-story atrium lobhy is an exterior. Association) and a health club with indoor track be taken over by Bavlor. attempt to equate the hospital with the grand hotel. whose exuberant Postmodern interior, designed by William T. Cannady & Associates, inverts the tendency to dress up the facade shopping mall exercises considerably William Bertncr (the TMC's first more control over the design and use of president) with an initial $20 million its property. Closer to reality is another endowment from the foundation of Waincrdi's analogies, comparing each established by cotton-exporting magnate institution to a separate city: Methodist Monroe D. Anderson. It was conceived City. St. Luke's City, Baylor City. In the as both a charitable endeavor and an same way that Houston has been unable economic backup system for a city in to implement zoning or planning, the need of diversification. The original TMC cannot deal with most of the 134-acrc site, part of Hermann Park, was collective and urban matters that should purchased from the city in 1943.
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