Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus, Stuttgart

In 1940, manufacturer Robert Bosch (1861–1942) opened the first hospital to bear his name, which also followed his principles. One of these is that the patients’ well-being must be served – medically, but also in terms of equally knowledgeable and thoughtful care, and all this in buildings that are as practical as they are good to look at. Bosch followed the same principles in his work as an industrialist. Bosch was interested in promoting public welfare as well as his highly successful business activities. Since 1964, 92 per cent of Robert Bosch GmbH has belonged to the Robert Bosch Foundation, whose dividends benefit education, science, understanding among nations and health care. So in 1973 it became possible to open a new hospital complex in Auerbachstrasse, in north-east Stuttgart. There has been continual extension and improvement of the existing stock by Arcass Freie Architekten, and in recent years the geriatric rehabilitation clinic and the very stimulating chapel in the south corner have been added, both by Günter Leonhardt, and also the entrance building by Joachim Schürmann & Partner, this last with an ambience that is scarcely reminiscent of a hospital. One side of the access route to this part of the building is lined with austerely framed pools, and there are three square pavilions on the other side. The route leads past the reception to a vertical 'spina', a glass lift and staircase tower topped by a viewing terrace rising above everything else. The appealing housing estate a few paces to the north is also by Joachim Schürmann & Partner, and offers dwellings of various types and sizes for people working in the hospital. Of course the obvious urge to make everything as perfect as possible is not expressed only in the architectural coherence of the buildings, but appropriately to the foundation’s intentions, everything that happens in them in terms of medical care is equally well thought through. Very unusually for a hospital, the well-being of patients and staff is served not least by the presentation of selected works of fine art, selected and placed by a specially formed committee. Manfred Sack, who has a doctorate in music, was for almost four decades the architecture critic for the Hamburg weekly newspaper Die Zeit. Peter Walser is not only an architect as his first profession, but also works as a sought-after designer and architectural photographer. He has already appeared in the Opus series with the volumes on Balthasar Neumann’s pilgrimage church in Neresheim and Peter Kulka’s Bosch-Haus Heidehof in Stuttgart.