BEIJING TIANTAN HOSPITAL

For healthcare buildings, Louis Sullivan's old rule still applies: “Form follows function”. And because hospitals overflow with functions, there are evidently hardly any possibilities for variation in form. By contrast, the Tiantan Hospital has been created with the very poetic motto of “five feelings and six senses”. It is one of the leading international neurology hospitals – and boasts a facade with a regional reference.

Healthcare buildings are rarely used as models for particularly spectacular architecture. Construction dimensions to be tackled are too large, planning times are too long, the purely functional demands are too high, and individual wards are converted too frequently. And due to the footprint of the buildings, it is virtually impossible to integrate modern hospitals in historical city structures. As a result, diagnoses and treatments are almost only carried out on the outskirts of cities. This is no different in China compared to Europe, and the new Tiantan Hospital in Beijing is a prime example.

Architectural competition

Beijing's city centre is also in urgent need of relief to avoid its collapse. And the enormous Tiantan Park, protected as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, does not tolerate competing buildings in its immediate vicinity. However, this is exactly what would have happened if the city administration had expanded the “Beijing Tiantan Hospital”, founded there in 1956, with the required capacities on site. In 2010 it was therefore decided to move the hospital to the Fengtai district, an area that was still dominated by traditional Hutong architecture in the mid-1980's – today it has several million inhabitants. In the run-up to this major project, the implementation of the task was also considered with German participation but in the end the building was completed by the Chinese office BIAD – Beijing Institute of Architectural Design.

Modern facade

The architects handled this enormous task by dividing the total required volume into functional units and structurally subdividing it into several building structures – all in all, in its large form, similar to an aircraft carrier. The most striking design is clearly the main building of the complex. It has been given a lavish, state-of-the-art facade whose ornamental wickerwork has been the latest fashion in international architecture since Herzog & de Meuron completed the National Stadium in Beijing in 2008. In the case of the Tiantan Hospital, however, the wickerwork is reduced to a white net on the outermost layer of the facade skin, serving at most as a reflection of the local stadium. The other ward buildings lined up behind them do not feature this creative element.

Poetic motto

Instead, the entire complex was designed based on the very poetic motto of “five feelings and six senses”. Because patients, visitors and employees should experience with all their senses that respect, authority, trust, safety and comfort prevail in this hospital. This goal is achieved through the colour and feel of the selected surfaces, careful planning of acoustics, lighting technology and ventilation. In total, the facility accommodates 352,000 square meters of various specialist clinics, outpatient departments, waiting areas, technical buildings, administrative offices and 1650 hospital beds. According to Tiantan, this makes it one of the three leading neurology hospitals in the world. However, national health insurance patients from Germany might consider the bed halls typical for the Tiantan Hospital somewhat unusual, making them think fondly of the two-bed rooms in wards at home. While hospital construction has become increasingly globalised, these types of national differences still remain.

Location: Fengtai, Beijing, CN

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