Page 241 - C_Modena

Area Salute | Health Area 319

the Azienda Ospedaliero-Universitaria of Modena.
North-west of the area of Policlinico, a two-storey building was erected
between 2002 and 2005. It is now home to the Medical School of the
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.
It is endowed with a basement and its interior spaces are designed in
such a way as to allow for a functional exploitation of natural lighting.
A number of glass doors open all along the building’s façade and a long,
covered walkway leads to its main entrance.
On this same side of the building, large glass windows make up the
tilted wall of the second floor, providing the foyer of the 600-seat Aula
Magna with adequate lighting. The room is characterised by a stepped
structure and can be accessed from two levels: one of these is located
on the ground floor, while the other is on the upper floor and can be
reached from the two staircases at the entrance of the building.
Stairs also lead to the basement, where the university Medical Library
can be found, and which is accessible from the outside as well.
On the ground floor, meeting and lecture rooms of various sizes are
conceived on the basis of a modular vision permitting to re-adjust
them so as to meet potential space-related needs.
The other sides of the structure display a continuous sequence of
French windows. The southern area develops on a long side connected
to one part of the hospital’s historical building, more namely the por-
tion designed by the architect Ettore Rossi in 1933 and accomplished
in 1963. Rossi’s project was highly innovative for that time, when the
traditional “wing-based” organization of hospital buildings, structured
into several different pavilions, was still the prevailing one. The architect
abandoned this model in favour of a whole new “monobloc”, vertical
structure, inspired by the tall skyscrapers that, since the beginning of
the 20th century, had started consisting of hospital units in the United
States. Such a solution had the major advantage of optimising assis-
tance time by concentrating medical services in one single building.

Two views of the Aula Magna of the Faculty of Medicine and Surgery, Modena