What determines the nature of the places we inhabit? At the end of my street, construction workers are tearing apart what used to be a hospital. The hospital recently moved further out into the suburbs to a new building, while their old building was to be demolished. In the past two sentences that I just wrote, I have used the word "hospital" in two different ways. In the first sentence, I used the term "hospital" to denote a building, while in the second, "hospital" refers to the collective community (staff, doctors, patients, and administrators). It is this ambiguity of the term that makes me wonder, do we understand a place through its architecture or the people and their work that happen to be in a certain building? I am inclined to say that it is the people and the work they do that gives a space its meaning. Whether it is a hospital, a school, a non-profit or a for-profit company, the buildings that populate the landscape of our lives, on closer inspection, derive their meaning from the communities within and around. This strikes me as remarkable. Human beings are architects of meaning through their daily work. In the case of the hospital that used to be at the end of my street, workers and patients infused the raw materials of that particular space with a significance and purpose beyond what any professional architect could have done. Now, the hospital has not been destroyed, but rather only relocated because the hospital is where the community is. This realization can be applied to any building that we recognize as operating for a certain function. It is incredible, really, that we recognize any particular building as performing a certain function (i.e. education, healing, worship, serving the community, etc), this is a radical testament not to the design or signage of the building, but rather to the work of the people inside and out.
2 comments:
Cool. Don't forget about the hospital in relation to its outside community though, either. The relocation of Metro to an area off the M-6 means a lot of people will have to go elsewhere for their healthcare. I've been wondering about the implications that this has for people who don't have the resources to commute to Metro for tests, etc. There are other hospitals accessible by bus that they can go to, but what might they be losing by not having that hospital near them anymore? What message is Metro sending by relocating its services?
Amy,
I see your point. I thought about that briefly while I was writing this post. You are right, we do need to also be aware about the unique interactions any place has with the people around it. I wonder then, can I still say that the hospital remains the same, or has indeed a new hospital been formed in a new community? I share your concerns about the needs of the community. It is sad to me that I no longer walk to end of the street and see a busy hospital. Although their new facilities are nice, and probably represent an economically savvy decision, it is yet another case of leaving the central city for the periphery (a.k.a. suburbia), which I think is contrary to building strong communities. On the hopeful side, it will be interesting to see how the organization and building that replaces the old hospital building will serve to influence and affect the community.
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