Nurses Home

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

Largely unaltered purpose built nurses home contemporaneous with the nearby hospital. Treatment of architectural form consistent with the larger building. Parts of the building are clearly differentiated on the exterior according to their differing functions. Contrasting materials and textures have been exploited to the full and the structural requirements of different walls expressed in their finishing.

The building houses bedrooms for nurses and an assembly hall with stage. The two main functions are located to either side of a single storey glass entrance lobby framed in stained timber and with a flat roof. The nurses wing rises four floors. Rooms are clad with a light fibrous panelling and PVC windows while toilets at each end are clad in brick as are the load bearing end walls. A common room for each floor and the entrance staircase is also clad in brick but has its concrete structure exposed. This block is surmounted by a water tower clad in stained timber. At the furthest ends of the nurses wing, two concrete framed stairs are exposed, with glazing between white metal mullions to each side and the concrete frame infilled at the ends with concrete block rendered with pebbledash.

The main side walls of the Assembly hall are clad in random rubble whinstone and glazing is confined to the concrete framed main space between. At the end of the hall (which is two storeys high), the back of the stage area is clad in timber, but a row of windows below lights a half sunken plantroom where stainless steel pipes can be clearly glimpsed from the road outside. A single storey wing of ancillary rooms is attached to one side of the Assembly hall. Its gables are clad in stone while the concrete framed rooms between are clad in timber with a strip of white metal glazing behind. Near the Assembly hall stands a single storey free standing store with flat roof which is of little note except for the detailing of the entrance door which matches exactly the timber cladding of the larger hall, the two make a nice composition.

The building is located in parkland, which frames the home, particularly to the rear, to fine effect. The entrance is serviced by a car park unchanged except for the light fittings. An original ramp as well as steps gives access to the entrance.

Adjacent is the former Eaton home now known as the Agnes Jones building and is part of the hospital complex (HB 01/08/017).

Historical information

Designed by Yorke Rosenberg Mardall between 1956 and 1959 as part of the development of Altnagelvin Hospital. Opened in February 1960 and unaltered since, except for some minor renovations to accommodate offices in 1990, and the replacement of the original metal windows on the nurses wing to PVC at the same time.

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

A consistent and rigorous piece of 1950s architecture, both in its concept and detailing. It follows closely the ‘form follows function’ dictum that was the architectural orthodoxy of the time. In their choice of materials with textural and weathering characteristics however, the architects added an extra quality to the building; a local interpretation of the mainstream, best defined by Kenneth Frampton as ‘critical regionalism’ i.e. ‘a locally inflected manifestation of world culture’.

The use of stone on the building and throughout the hospital complex is undoubtedly influenced by the work of Le Corbusier on Pavilion Suisse (1933), but the combination with textured materials rather than smooth gives a primitive quality more akin to his contemporary work on Maisons Jaoul (1955). This quality ties the complex to the primitive/modern Princes Macha (HB01/08/006) Sculpture, the choice of a glacial boulder found on site as a foundation stone and to the massive stone clad entrance pillars (only one now remains). However the building could not be said to qualify for the "outstanding" quality required for a building as recent as this to merit listing.