Beatriz Colomina's talk sought to examine how developments in medical understanding and representation of the human body and its ailments may have influenced architectural practice - to see if a philosophy of design could be said to have evolved from medical discourse. What was laid out was not an attempt to rewrite architectural history, but to draw parallels which would add valuable new views of material well covered from other perspectives.

Beginning with one example - the arrival and subsequent widespread use of the x-ray - she demonstrated how revolutionary its effect of externalizing what was previously rigidly internal was at the time, and how it could be said to have changed how many people viewed the world, including architects. Areas previously private to all were open to surveillance, and discussion by all - questions were asked for the first time, and the resultant ambiguity between what the words 'inside' and 'outside' actually meant could be said to have produced a shift in perspective which led to the development of ideas from the skeletal aesthetic of some modernist architecture, to the three-dimensional x-ray of domesticity that is the Farnsworth House. One could view this transformation as being as profound as the effect of the discovery of perspective and the concept of infinity on renaissance architects. The modern equivalent of this process today might be the effect of the CAT scan with its ability to expose complete systems within the body, when compared to some contemporary views of buildings and design from a similar standpoint.

The fight against tuberculosis, which dominated medical discourse early in the century, was also quoted as an example. The effects of this illness penetrated the consciousness of society at large. Cities and houses became battlegrounds against the disease, as damp and squalid living conditions were identified as prime culprits. Sanatoria sprang up to aid those affected, and here a strong institutional aesthetic emerged which was in many ways the rejection of what was found in the areas identified above. These buildings also became important pieces of architecture in their own right, and indeed at this time a fascination for medical and institutional architecture permeated mainstream architectural discourse. Appropriating the aesthetic and symbolism of these buildings as representing the best in domestic modernity was natural and reassuring - the house as sanatorium - clean, white, unsullied, although in this case occupied by healthy individuals. The fact that at this time a clear link between building and health was established is important. This reading can be extended, to the point where a house is medical equipment, a piece of preventative medicine, where pilotis are sanitary devices, separating the institute of the home from the damp, disease-ridden ground, and windows offer x-rays of the domestic environment to the world at large to be diagnosed. It is interesting to compare this scenario with enlightenment ideas of buildings as tools for reformation, as moral structures built to reshape their occupants to some 'higher' end, or indeed to today's 'sick-building syndrome' - the ultimate collapse of such determinist thought.

After the war the primary medical concern in the public domain shifted to the mental health of the population, and particularly of those working isolated in the home. In response the house became seen as a panacea for mental ills, and the consumerist idea of purchasing your happiness in the form of new trappings for your anonymous suburban dwelling became mainstream culture. One quote from an advertisement in Progressive Architecture brings home the view at the time - 'it wasn't a psychiatrist mother needed, it was a new kitchen' in many ways it could be said that this materialist view to attaining well being is alive and well today, although in mutated form.

Andrew Clancy

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