EARLY 1900 SANATORIUMS :
A SCENERY FOR TBC NOVELS

by Francesca Oddo

Thomas Mann, Salvatore Satta,
Gesualdo Bufalino & other writers guide
our perspective through a parallel
reading course

Literature often offered a further
interpretative viewpoint over urban,
and general, architecture.
Reading the latter through novels
is a sign of curiosity, and matures it
even further.
The Reader/architect, (or Archi-reader,)
enduring this path, will look for ambiences,
urban traces, architectures.
All this through the character’s moves,
sights or thoughts, or narrator’s descriptions,
as no visual representation is given,
rather it is grown into readers’ minds.
1955 Metello, written by Vasco Pratolini,
is a fair example of non-direct Imaging :
the author describes Florence’s late 1800s
unification wars’ change in building design,
carefully mixed, line after line, with
contemporary syndical deeds.
Also, Cristo si e’ fermato a Eboli,
a ’45 novel by C.Levi, or L’uva puttanella
by Rocco Scotellaro, are a cultural cocktail
of a Southern Italian city, Matera’s, downtown
network and social facts; surfacing as
an imaginary slideshow of urban sections
and architectural episodes.
During the Thirties, Tuberculosis became
a widely spread plague in Europe, hence
the need for dedicated healing structures.
In a parallel sense, many novelists started
writing on the subject, their works enduring
a long-time success, thusly promoting
Sanatoriums to their new role :
sceneries of human tragedy and illness fight.
1924’s The Enchanted Mountain by Thomas
Mann, or Diceria dell’Untore ( written in a
20 years span starting in 1950) by Gesualdo
Bufalino, or even La Veranda ( 1928 thru
1930 ) by Salvatore Satta, main characters
often describe, in a very detailed fashion,
their long-to-be nursing homes ( sadly,
at times their last ).
These were Anti TBC Sanatoriums,
surrounded by woods, forests, huge gardens,
believed to be part of Helium-Therapy.
In Mann’s masterpiece, the author describes
these Medical structures as “an entire Microcosm,
fully featured panorama for any philosophical
and cultural thought”.
Our thoughts, no pun intended, go as
well to Professor Settembrini, main
character in the novel above, to his complex
and never-ending disquisitions on human mind;
we can easily hear his words fluctuating
through lush forests surrounding these medical
structures, and imagine their tall white
buildings contrasting the woods’ green
hues; pale glassy cubes and prisms
reaching for sunlight (believed a great relief
for Tbc Patients).
Paimio Sanatorium, designed in 1929
by Alvar Aalto, Zonnestraal sanatorium in
Hilversum by J.Duiker (1928), Purkersdorf in
V ienna by J.Hoffmann ( 1904 thru 1908 )
are icons for this new desing philosophy,
first examples of “custom architecture”,
as part of the healing process.
In “ Tristan”, written by T.Mann in 1930,
the author describes an Empire-style nursing
home, foregoing Berghof Sanatorium’s
description in The Enchanted Mountain.
Hans Castorp, leading character in this
novel, perceives the latter as “ white,
practical furniture; pale, strong, washable
tapestry; immaculate linoleum floor, simple
linen curtains with a modern look“.

Let’s repeat the adjectives used above :
white, practical, modern. These literary pixels
steer the Archi-reader’s vision on to
contemporary medical feeling in design.

Back to the lines, now : take a peek in
the rooms : “ nichel-plated taps glister in
electric lighting,; he peeked for a brief
moment on a white metal bed with clean
sheets on”. We also perceive “a strangely
modern dining room”, “ balconies for
Deck-chair therapy...(chairs)one by one
divided by dark glass fencing”
Modernism-reflecting desing, yet compromising
with patients’ needs, as human beings
confined in a medical structure.
Paimio Sanatorium wins the prize, in this
respect, as most balanced compromized
of desing and comfort.
To the extent that even its builder Alvar
Aalto, bends Modernism cold and functional
style toward ill men’s needs.

Tuberculosis became as well a “ Literary
disease”, spreading its infuence over many
late 1800 novelists : to recall but a few,
France’s Dumas, or Italy’s Boito, Gozzano,
Corazzini.
All through their tales, Archi-readers looking
for vintage desing clues, willl eventually
find further perspectives, and a precise
representation on patients’ living needs.

Italian-to-English Translation
Courtesy of Fabio Cesarone