But it’s nice inside.”īut there were supporters. One resident was quoted as saying, “You know, I don’t think the Russians will ever steal it.” Another said, “It looks like a big prison. Others say they may grow to like as the years pass.” Some seemed to have learned to live with it. Shortly after the opening, The Spectator published a special supplement “The Great McMaster Medicine Show.” In it, a reporter wrote: “Many think the building will be eternally ugly. It screams accessibility.”īut brutalism was not terribly popular with Hamiltonians in 1972. It’s outspoken, the architectural equivalent of free speech … It was really a new vision for the late 20th century. It was irreverent, it broke down hierarchies, it democratized. “When I teach brutalism in my course at McGill to first year architecture students, I tell them to think of it like rock and roll music. It was a movement that started in the United Kingdom in the 1950s during reconstruction after the Second World War.īut Adams says there is more than meets the eye. “It was very much part of the exciting, almost utopian culture of the early 1970s,” says Adams.Īnd its “brutalist” style of the architecture was diametrically opposed to the serene “collegiate gothic” style of the original buildings of the university that were built in the 1930s.īrutalist structures tend to be minimalist mounds of concrete that avoid decorative design in favour of highlighting structural components. The building was also a product of changing times more generally. Evans wanted something that would echo the spirit of unconventional medical training ideas he was developing that involved “small group, self-directed, problem-based learning with early patient engagement.” In late 1967, Evans brought on Zeidler, of Craig, Zeidler and Strong architectural firm, to design a unique centre that would be used as a hospital and for medical teaching purposes. John Evans, the first dean of McMaster University's medical school with a model of McMaster University Medical Centre also known as McMaster Health Sciences Centre. Rather than conceptualizing the floors as a series of specially designed rooms, the emphasis was on wide open spaces that could be configured and reconfigured as needed.ĭr. Yet the centre today is highly regarded for its innovation, especially for its use of interstitial floors that Zeidler called a “servo system.” Infrastructure for air, water, gases and other services is housed on unpopulated floors so it doesn’t encumber areas where people work. And dreams of schools of dentistry or pharmacy never happened.Īnd while much change went on inside - most notably with the transition to McMaster Children’s Hospital - the exterior is essentially the same as it was when it opened in May 1972. Plans to expand toward Dalewood Avenue never materialized. Service towers that waited to be connected to a fifth floor are still waiting. Health care techniques and technologies were always changing, and he felt hospitals needed to keep pace.īut the sprawling, concrete edifice, that has also been known as the McMaster Health Sciences Centre, never reached its full potential. Zeidler wanted a structure that was as flexible as possible. Tom BochslerĪrchitect Eberhard Zeidler, who died in January at the age of 95, used to say that was precisely his plan. A lineup at McMaster University Medical Centre for its opening day in May 1972.
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