Materiality and public architecture: All Saints Royal hospital in Lisbon (16th century)
Hospitals, historically fundamental institutions for healthcare, are embodied in buildings where are developed a set of practices and actions required to treatment of the disease and care for patients.
From the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Era, there is an institutional evolution of the hospital, related to different social, political, scientific and cultural factors, which also had an impact on the evolution of hospital buildings and their characteristics.
Hospital buildings as urban architecture delimit a space, configure a place and present a complex architectural design, influenced by the need to fulfill a concrete function, an epochal aesthetic and symbolic issues.
This paper, using a case study – the royal Hospital of All Saints in Lisbon, intends to investigate how, based on a historical perspective, the largest and most important hospital in Portugal in the Early Modern Age were perceived as a space with multiple dimensions.
The All-Saints Royal Hospital was the first public hospital institution and building created by a royal initiative in Portugal. Founded in Lisbon in 1492 by King João II, within the context of a deep crisis in care institutions, it remained in use until the demolition of the site began in 1775. This complex, Europe-wide process of consolidating and reorganizing hospitals during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries has obvious urban and architectural dimensions, since the construction of new buildings provided opportunities to experiment with floorplans and aesthetic trends, in keeping with emerging Renaissance designs.
In the paper we will consider three topics. The first is its function, which was inherent to its role as a health space, and determined its specific architectural plan and spatial organization, construction elements, and architectural changes over time. The second is its aesthetics, and its careful design as an artistic object, which resulted in a program highlighted by its sumptuousness as represented in several contemporary paintings and prints. And the third is the symbolism of the hospital and its representation of a civic ideal, proper city governance, efforts made towards the common good and the shared responsibility for social justice.
Joana Balsa de Pinho
Associate Researcher
ARTIS – Institute of Art History, University of Lisbon
joanabalsapinho@gmail.com
Joana Pinho holds a PhD in Art History (University of Lisbon, 2013), with a thesis about the architecture promoted to the Confraternities of the Mercy in the 16th century, with a PhD fellowship from the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT).
She has integrated several research projects, as a member of the research team in Portugal, Brazil and Spain. Since 2018, she is the PI of the project “Hospitalis – Hospital Architecture in Portugal at the dawn of Modernity: identification, characterization and contextualization”, funded by FCT.
Since 2020 July is an associated researcher appointed by Artis – Institute for Art History (University of Lisbon), in the context of an Individual Support Grant (Stimulus of Scientific Employment), with the project «Hosp_ARCHI – Circulation, appropriation and reassignment of architectonic models: Portuguese hospital architecture in the 16th century» (CEECIND/00691/2018).
This paper, using a case study – the royal Hospital of All Saints in Lisbon, intends to investigate how, based on a historical perspective, the largest and most important hospital in Portugal in the Early Modern Age were perceived as a space with multiple dimensions. We will consider three topics. The first is its function, which determined its specific architectural plan and spatial organization, construction elements, and architectural changes over time. The second is its aesthetics, and its careful design as an artistic object, which resulted in a program highlighted by its sumptuousness as represented in several contemporary paintings and prints. And the third is the symbolism of the hospital and its representation of a civic ideal, proper city governance, efforts made towards the common good and the shared responsibility for social justice.