Ästhetik der heilsamen Orte

Economic pressure and increasing efficiency have led to a rationalisation of the health care system, which is reflected by interpersonal deficits as well as in spatial design deficiencies. As part of a research project at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar, an interdisciplinary team led by Gabriel Dörner analysed the state of hospitals in Thuringia and developed approaches for the holistic design of healing architecture.

The hospital sector is an example that shows the negative implications of the integration of the German health system into the so-called free markets. The health system has come to be largely dissociated from its original task: the promotion and maintaining of people’s health in a sustainable way. What does society gain from the fact that health care and pharmaceutical companies (and their shareholders) make money by making people sick and keeping them sick? What responsibility can we, as designers, take in order to take action despite the complexity of the problem? Based on these questions, Ästhetik der heilsamen Orte declares the hospital a public place. A place of a discourse in which the vision of health for all people can be negotiated. Ästhetik der heilsamen Orte also turns the hospital into a health house.

As part of the Bauhaus centenary, a competition was launched in which the students themselves were supposed to plan and implement teaching and research projects. The goal was to deal with the philosophy of the Bauhaus and current socially relevant research fields in an interdisciplinary environment and to enrich the university’s teaching with innovative learning formats.

Gabriel Dörner has interpreted the Bauhaus’s approach that integrates all design disciplines in the “Bau” in a contemporary way. The project he developed and managed dealt with the current situation and potentials of the healthcare system. In relation to the spatial and structural analysis of hospitals, holistic artistic and design concepts were developed, which can be both conceptual solutions and artistic utopias of future healthcare architecture.

20 students and several renowned scientists accompanied Gabriel Dörner during the project. At the end of the project, conceptual and visionary drafts and approaches were presented and discussed in an exhibition as well as in a discussion forum and a publication.

382 pages
17×23,5×3 cm
ISBN 978–3–945301–43–2
half binding with offset and silk screen printing
Published by Lucia-Verlag