Sart-Tilman University Hospital

• Date 1962-1987
• Address Avenue de L’Hôpital, 1 – 4000 Liège

The construction of a new hospital complex on the Sart-Tilman site plays a fundamental role in both the history of the city and that of the architect. The primary aim of the University Hospital project is to provide the public with modern and accessible healthcare facilities. Since the late 19th^e century, the City of Liège and the University have shared dilapidated facilities spread across numerous buildings and pavilions scattered throughout the Bavière district in Outremeuse. In the 1960s, the City and the University each decided to build their own hospital. The City chose the Citadel site (architects Jean Poskin, Henri Bonhomme and Henri Montois, 1978), whilst the University saw the project as a new opportunity to establish the Sart-Tilman site as a new regional hub.

After approving the programme in 1965, the University’s Governing Board commissioned Charles Vandenhove to draw up an initial draft proposal. In addition to patient care services, the programme combines teaching and academic research.

The project promises to be a colossal undertaking, on a scale unlike any hospital previously built in Liège, or indeed in Belgium, and initially envisages 1,100 beds catering for a range of medical conditions, as well as facilities capable of accommodating 425 researchers. Vandenhove began by gathering a vast amount of documentation and exploring numerous recent projects across Europe, but it was the recent examples built in the USA that captured the interest of the architect and the committee set up by the university to develop the project. The archives contain, in particular, the plans for the University of Kentucky Hospital (Lexington, 1963) and the Health Sciences Centre at the University of British Columbia (architects and engineers Thompson, Berwick, Pratt & Partners, 1967). In 1967, Charles Vandenhove, accompanied by Dr Gomez, the chief medical officer tasked with assisting the architect in the design of the project, travelled to California to study recent examples. The advantages of the open-plan layout, square-plan towers and the technical floor were adopted by the team, which in October 1973 crossed the Atlantic once more for an eight-day study trip to Hamilton (Canada) and Boston (USA). Whilst there, Vandenhove visited the McMaster University Hospital (architect Eberhard Zeidler, 1969) in Hamilton (Canada), which particularly interested him in terms of the finishes: “& nbsp;The interior finishes were the subject of careful attention by the architect, who adopted a resolutely modern approach in which the contrasts between the bright colours of the walls, floor coverings and furniture create a cheerful, youthful atmosphere, in stark contrast to the dull tones usually found in hospitals. ”

The project proposed by Charles Vandenhove is organised as follows: five towers radiate out from a truncated, fully glazed stepped pyramid, which houses, in particular, the reception area, administrative services, outpatient clinics and operating theatres. The glass entrance canopy is a work of art in its own right and draws notably on the construction method of metal porticos used by the architect in 1974 during the extension of his own home. The towers, designed on a square plan, house various hospital departments and premises dedicated to university research. Adhering to the principles of the open-plan layout, Vandenhove employed a modular grid of 7.20 x 7.20 m. Separated by lightweight partitions, the spaces can be easily reconfigured as needs evolve, whilst technical levels allow for maintenance work without disrupting the operation of the various departments. Remarkable for its coherence, the project demonstrates an exceptional attention to detail. From the joinery to the handles and the carpets, everything has been designed by the architect. The involvement of visual artists also bears witness, without being ostentatious or gratuitous, to the dialogue between art and architecture. The enamelled sheet metal panelling, in particular, is based on screen prints by around ten artists, including Daniel Buren and Sol LeWitt. The rationalisation of hospital policy in the late 1970s led to the project being called into question and subsequently to the architect’s dismissal in 1986, just a few months before the hospital’s opening.

Guest artists: Jean-Charles Blais, Daniel Buren, Jacques Charlier, Olivier Debré, Jo Delahaut, Sol LeWitt, André Romus, Niele Toroni, Claude Viallat, Marthe Wéry, Léon Wuidar.

• Description of the collection

  Plans of the entire project (towers, glass roof, etc.), specifications, minutes of meetings, schedules and preliminary designs. Also contains archives relating to the production of the film about the building by Films de la Passerelle.

   

• Volumetry 103 archive boxes, 1 box containing 1 film, 14 ring binders (13.70 m)
• Bibliography

  Numéro spécial consacré à l’architecte Ch. Vandenhove, La Maison, n° 5, May 1967, p. 170-172.

  « Hôpital » dans La Maison, n° 11, November 1968, p. 371.

  GOMEZ, Jean, « Le Centre Hospitalier Universitaire au Sart-Tilman » in Architecture, n° 93, January–February 1970, p. 676-682.

  BEKAERT, Geert, « Centre hospitalier universitaire / Sart-Tilman, Liège » in Charles Vandenhove, une architecture de la densité, Liège, Pierre Mardaga éditeur, 1985, p. 33-41.

  Le centre hospitalier de l’Université de Liège au Sart-Tilman, Liège, Service d’Information technique de l’Université de Liège, February 1972.

  LAVALOU, Armelle, « Charles Vandenhove, hôpital universitaire du Sart-Tilman à Liège » in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui, n° 256, April 1988, p. 32-43.

   

• AUTHOR AND DATE OF THE ENTRY Sébastien Charlier, 2021