Much needed and one of the largest. The Wielkopolska Children's Health Center is almost ready, and early next year it will replace Poznan's well-deserved pediatric clinics. However, the scale, sense and modern equipment of the facility are more impressive than its architecture.
In just a few months, a long-standing nightmare for Wielkopolska children and their parents will end. Among other things, the dire, almost makeshift conditions in Poznan's too-small and outdated pediatric hospital on Krysiewicza Street among the cramped buildings of the Old Town will be consigned to history. After decades of anticipation and promises, the Wielkopolska Children's Health Center (WCZD) will finally be launched. The edifice is ready, its equipment is being finished. Early next year it will receive its first patients.
The project was completed in the northwestern part of the city on Wrzoska Street. It filled three hectares of undeveloped space between two hospitals from the 1970s: the provincial hospital on Juraszow Street and the MSW on Dojazd Street. In this way, while cutting down about 3,000 trees (!), the quarter planned more than half a century ago for hospital development between the excavation of the expressway (Witosa Street), allotment gardens and open green areas was completed.
WCZD from the northern side. On the left: the buildings of the provincial hospital on Juraszow Street
Photo: Jakub Głaz
The investor - the Wielkopolska Hospitals company, whose sole shareholder is the Wielkopolska voivodeship - did not announce a competition for the hospital's design. The complex was therefore designed by Industria Project, a Gdansk-based company selected in a tender (2016), which specializes in, among other things, healthcare facilities built across the country, including the recently commissioned Krakow University Hospital. The construction of the Poznan investment measuring more than 35,000 sq. m. of net space cost about 430 million zlotys (more than half of the funds are EU subsidies). Work began in 2018, with Warbud as the main contractor.
large and without a cross
The WCZD building is - at first glance - a solid construction subordinated to a complex and demanding function. Rather, it shows no ambition to make it to the list of spectacular realizations, which, by the way, is typical (and, who knows, maybe justified) in the case of most medical facilities erected in Poland. Exceptions of a more individual nature can be counted on the fingers of one hand, such as the University Clinical Center in Gdansk (designed by Arch-Deco) or the carefully expanded children's hospital in Warsaw (designed by Chmielewski Skała Architekci).
WCZD from the western side. Treatment and surgical part with ED.
photo: Jakub Głaz
The construction of the WCZD is worth noting, however, because it is the first public hospital in Poznan built from scratch after several decades, as well as one of the most impressive children's clinics in central Europe and the largest new unit of its kind in the country. The seven-story building (six aboveground plus technical floors, one underground) consists of rectangular segments in a symmetrical comb-shaped layout. In the more massive western part, the architects located the diagnostic and treatment part with an operating theater, outpatient clinics, administrative offices and located on the first floor: the emergency room, ED and diagnostic imaging rooms. The eastern part (four segments on an H-plan) houses 354 patient rooms: all single-bedded, with bathroom and space for a caregiver.
Both parts: bed and strictly medical - are served by a main staircase riser and a central elevator complex. The building also has space for a restaurant, and - rare in the catering era - a hospital kitchen is also to operate. The needs of the spirit have also been thought of: including a spacious patio provided for performances, concerts or plays, and an ecumenical chapel - devoid of any religious symbols.
dolphin under the ceiling
WCZD from the south side. The main entrance
Photo: Jakub Głaz
From the renovated Wrzoska Street, a bus stop and a new parking lot for more than 400 cars, the main entrance leads to the interior, clearly highlighted by a spacious canopy on V-shaped supports. This is one of the few attempts to give the block a slightly more individual expression. The other is to differentiate the facade with an irregular arrangement of narrow vertical windows and colorful Scalamid facade panels. There will be considerably more invigorating touches in the interior to help children get used to hospital realities. For example, the lobby already features levitating dolphins and a scuba diver from the ceiling.
Will these purely decorative treatments be able to add individuality to standard interiors, and to what extent? This will only become clear after the opening and overall evaluation of the numerous rooms of the treatment complex, which will unite the facilities scattered around the city. For the WCZD will eventually house nine wards (including the first children's Hospital Emergency Ward in Wielkopolska), but also specialized clinics transferred here not only from the old hospital on Krysiewicza Street, but also from the pediatric ZOZ on Nowowiejskiego and Sporna Streets and the Rehabilitation Center for Children in Kiekrz.
unleashed modernism
Thus, the launch of the WCZD will free up interesting buildings in the city center. Not on such a grand scale as is the case in Cracow after the university hospital is moved to new premises. However, there is a chance that one of the most interesting buildings of pre-war modernism will regain its former class. We're talking about the former Garczyński nursing home occupied by the pediatric hospital on Nowowiejskiego Street. After many alterations, it barely resembles the form that the esteemed Poznan architect and urban planner Władysław Czarnecki gave it in 1934. A project is already being prepared that will make the two buildings joined by an arcaded walkway look similar to their pre-war appearance.
Meanwhile, when the children's hospital opens, the first progress will be seen on the construction of another Poznan medical facility: the new Central Integrated Clinical Hospital at Grunwaldzka and Przybyszewskiego Streets. Work on this controversial colossus began a few months ago and, in keeping with the gigantic scale of the undertaking, needs to be presented in a separate and extensive text.
