The Docomomo Ibérico Foundation included in its registry – in 2022 – this interesting complex of healthcare architecture built in Talavera de la Reina between 1968 and 1976. These days we will celebrate the placement of a well-deserved plaque that recognizes the quality of the buildings and their well-being. preserved garden environment that is an essential part of this complex.
Above the fame of its architects or an author’s design, the building of the current Regional Institute of Health Sciences, former National Center for Health Demonstration that was also called Regional Center for Public Health, stands out for the involvement of its architects , within an interdisciplinary and international framework, in the renewal and improvement of the physical and environmental qualities of this type of infrastructure placed at the service of society.
Its antecedents date back to the conclusions of the 1963 WHO congress in Le Vesinet (France). During those days, initiatives were proposed to establish experimental laboratories, in contact with the territory, focused on the investigation of various public health problems, for which demonstration areas were created that would allow verifying the effectiveness of the measures adopted and contribute to training. of health workers.
Traditionally, health demonstration areas were linked to university centers and had to have a population between 30,000 and 120,000 inhabitants, have an urban and rural distribution that was representative of an entire country and cover a physically and sociologically defined territory that had to be have organized health services.
This area, specifically, also had the history of the Secondary Center for Rural Hygiene of Talavera and Puente del Arzobispo in 1932.
The initiative came from a group of health workers from the General Directorate of Health, followers of the postulates of Le Vesinet who had developed pioneering experiences in places like Tierra de Campos.
In January 1965, the first news appeared about the creation of a health center in Talavera with the participation of experts from the World Health Organization (WHO) who had traveled to Spain. The project had wide impact in the media and in October 1968 the final version was approved, with 130 beds and a budget of 78,660,048.55 pesetas. The works were awarded in August 1970, but did not begin until January of the following year in a process not without difficulties that concluded in June 1976 with the official inauguration of the National Health Demonstration Center (CNDS) by Minister Manuel Fraga Iribarne. .
Architectural features of the CNDS
From 1965 are the first reports by Professor Fraser Brokinton on the organizational aspects of the center that was to be designed based on pavilions (hospital and school).
The architects Gerardo Calviño Martínez and María Pérez Sheriff received the commission. The first was an author at the National Center of Virology of Majadahonda (Madrid) and had worked for the General Directorate of Health. María Pérez Sheriff, after completing her degree in Madrid, had expanded her studies in the United States and was a scholarship holder from the Ministry of Housing in urban planning.
His first preliminary projects were presented to the Architectural Services of the British Ministry of Health and in September 1968, William Tatton-Brown, an architect linked to the international congresses of modern architecture (CIAM) in the 1930s, traveled to our country. former collaborator of André Lurcart and Berthold Lubetkin, who traveled to Talavera as chief consultant to the WHO and chief architect of said service. Already here, the report WHO-Spain 0030 ‘Proposal for a Hospital and Center for the training of health workers in Talavera de la Reina’ was prepared, with an initial provision for 50 beds, developed by Calviño and Pérez-Sheriff, expandable vertically and horizontally, and susceptible of transformations due to its versatile, flexible, economical and functional design that can be expanded up to 500.
In this report, the construction of a model was proposed, which was finally carried out, of which we have photos and which is probably still preserved, somewhat damaged. W. Tatton-Brown’s participation focused on patient circulation, design of areas such as kitchens and configuration of possible extensions.
Finally, a building was approved with the third open floor prepared to be used for future needs with the collaboration of collaborating engineers (OF-5) following Tatton’s own recommendations and a design where the needs and recommendations of the nursing staff had great influence. following the English tradition of Royal College of Nursingand both María and Tatton, accustomed to working with architects, must have been very sensitive.
Differentiating features of the project:
-Set of pavilions with staggered distribution and visitable terraces, large glass surface and a large green area.
-Creation of nursing positions of much larger size than those designed by the technical services of Social Security.
-Creation of living rooms for patients for the first time in Spain.
-Construction of wide corridors to facilitate the circulation of beds.
-Incorporation of large continuous terraces linked to the rooms, which despite initial opposition, have demonstrated notable energy savings for the center, over decades of operation, which were especially useful during the Covid-19 pandemic.
-Architectural design focused on promoting a lighter and friendlier image that instilled a feeling of well-being.
-Use of three interior patios for lighting the consultation areas and numerous skylights for natural lighting in operating rooms and delivery rooms.
-Construction of accessible galleries for the distribution of different services and supplies that have become a general trend in later designs.
-Outside location of the thermal power plant, within a garden environment that forms an important part of the premises and is used for various tasks by the center’s management, in such a way that the 13,350 m² of the built complex are located on a generous plot of 26,753 m² with parking integrated between the wooded and garden areas that was designed with an animal facility for research work that, in the end, was not built, although the center initially had a stable for obtaining serums.
The aforementioned model was exhibited in an exhibition on hospital architecture in which the building was differentiated from the rest due to its functionality and its sensitive architecture rich in nuances, staggered and low in height, surrounded by gardens, trees and parking lots that caught the attention of the then princess Sofia.
We are talking about a project that manifested the learning gathered by its architects, through their contacts with the rest of Europe and who carried out an advanced and friendly hospital architecture that banished the suspicion that the old hospitals and charity centers generated among many sectors. , forming an environment whose image generated a healthy atmosphere in itself that almost 50 years later maintains its values after the transfer of the Center to the Community Board of Castilla-La Mancha in 1986, receiving the name of Regional Center of Public Health and maintaining functions similar to those described above.
