The National Center for Health Promotions, today the Regional Institute of Health Sciences of Talavera de la Reina

the Docomomo Iberico Foundation Included in its register – in 2022 – is this interesting complex of healthcare architecture built in Talavera de la Reina between 1968 and 1976. We will celebrate these days by placing a well-deserved plaque that recognizes the quality of the buildings and the well-preserved park environment that is an essential part of this Group.

Beyond the fame of its architects or the author’s design, the building of the current Regional Institute of Health Sciences, former National Center for Health Demonstrations and also called the Regional Center for Public Health, stands out for the involvement of its architects, in an interdisciplinary and international framework, in renovating and improving the physical and environmental characteristics of this type of Infrastructure placed at the service of the community.

Its precedents go back to the conclusions reached at the World Health Organization conference in 1963 in Le Visigné (France). During those days, initiatives were proposed to create experimental laboratories, in contact with the territory, focused on the investigation of various public health problems, for which experimental areas were created that would allow to verify the effectiveness of the measures adopted and contribute to the training of health workers.

Traditionally, health demonstration areas were linked to university centers and must have a population between 30,000 and 120,000 inhabitants, have an urban-rural distribution representative of the entire country, cover a physically and socially defined area and must have organized health services. Services.

This area, in particular, also has the history of the Secondary Center of Rural Hygiene of Talavera and Puente del Arzobispo in 1932.

The initiative began with a group of health workers from the General Directorate of Health, followers of Le Viciné’s postulates, who developed pioneering experiments in places such as Tierra de Campos.

In January 1965, the first news appeared about the establishment of a health center in Talavera with the participation of experts from the World Health Organization who had traveled to Spain. The project had a wide impact in the media, and in October 1968 the final version was approved, with 130 beds and a budget of 78,660,048.55 pesetas. The works were awarded in August 1970, but did not begin until January of the following year in a process that was not without difficulties and ended in June 1976 with the official opening of the National Sanitary Demonstration Center (CNDS) by Minister Manuel Fraga Iribarne.

Architectural features of CNDS

From 1965 appeared the first reports by Professor Fraser Brockinton on the organizational aspects of the center which was to be designed on the basis of the wings (hospital and school).

Architects Gerardo Calviño Martinez and María Pérez Sharif received the commission. The first was an author at the National Center of Virology in Majadahonda (Madrid) and worked at the General Directorate of Health. María Pérez Sharif, after obtaining her degree in Madrid, expanded her studies in the United States and received a scholarship from the Ministry of Housing in Urban Planning.

His first preliminary projects were submitted to the Architectural Services of the British Ministry of Health, and in September 1968, William Tatton-Brown, an architect associated with the International Congresses of Modern Architecture (CIAM) in the 1930s, traveled to our country Andre Lorquart and Berthold Lubetkin, who traveled to Talavera as chief advisors to the Global Health and chief engineers of the aforementioned service. Already here, WHO-Spain Report 0030 “Proposal for the establishment of a hospital and training center for health workers in Talavera de la Reina” has been prepared, with an initial provision of 50 beds, drawn up by Calviño and Pérez Sharif, expandable vertically and horizontally, and subject to transformations due to its multiple design. Versatile, flexible, economical and functional that can be expanded up to 500.

In this report it is proposed to build a model that was recently implemented and of which we have pictures, which may still be preserved and somewhat damaged. W. Tatton-Brown’s involvement focused on patient circulation, the design of areas such as kitchens and the configuration of potential extensions.

Finally, the building was approved with the open third floor being prepared for use for future needs in cooperation with the cooperating engineers (OF-5) in accordance with Tatton’s recommendations and a design in which the needs and recommendations of the nursing staff had a great influence on the English tradition of Royal College of NursingMaria and Taton, accustomed to working with architects, must have been very sensitive.

Distinctive features of the project:

– A group of suites with a graded distribution, visitable balconies, a large glass roof, and a large green space.

– Creating nursing positions of a much larger size than those designed by the technical departments of Social Security.

-Creating patient living rooms for the first time in Spain.

– Creating wide corridors to facilitate family circulation.

– The incorporation of large, continuous balconies linked to the rooms, which despite initial opposition, have shown notable energy savings for the centre, over decades of operation, and which have been particularly beneficial during the Covid-19 pandemic.

– The architectural design focuses on promoting a lighter, friendlier image that instills a sense of luxury.

– Using three internal courtyards to illuminate consultation areas and several skylights for natural lighting in operating rooms and delivery rooms.

– Building accessible halls to distribute various services and supplies, which became a general trend in subsequent designs.

– The external location of the thermal power plant, within a garden environment that forms an important part of the building and is used for various tasks by the center’s management, so that the built complex with an area of ​​​​13,350 square meters is located on a spacious plot of land of 26,753 square meters with parking spaces integrated between the wooded areas and gardens. Designed as an animal facility for research work, it was ultimately never built, although the center initially contained a stable for obtaining serums.

The aforementioned model was displayed in an exhibition on hospital architecture where the building stood out from the rest with its function and delicate architecture rich in nuances, interwoven and low in height, surrounded by gardens, trees and parking lots that attracted attention to the then Princess Sofia.

We are talking about a project that demonstrated the learning gathered by its engineers, through their contacts with the rest of Europe and who carried out an advanced and friendly hospital architecture that removed the suspicions generated by old hospitals and charitable centers among many sectors, forming an environment whose image generated a healthy atmosphere in itself and which has maintained after almost 50 years. On its values ​​after the center was transferred to the Community Council of Castilla-La Mancha in 1986, it received the name Regional Center for Public Health and maintained functions similar to those mentioned above.