Por J. Jesús López García
Architecture and the health system have always been an inseparable pairing. This regime was approached from the building field at a palliative rather than a preventive level, since health was conspicuous by its absence in the inhabitants who had a restricted life expectancy compared to what we currently have. Individuals lived less time and the precariousness of health was a warning of an anticipated certain death due to pain that with the advances in medicine today would be considered as temporary discomfort. An injury, a deficient nutrition, a deficient denture, were estimated as probable causes of an imminent death.
In Antiquity, sets of public baths were common with frigidariumspaces dedicated to the cold bath, the caldariumfor hot baths and gyms, all to this with the sentence “A healthy mind in a healthy body”. The city of Epidaurus, had the first hospital, rising as a comprehensive center for healing, rehabilitation and physical exercise, which meant an advance in relation to the spas that later appeared throughout the world. This Greek city offered itself to Asclepius –in Greek- or Aesculapius -in Latin- identified as the god of medicine and whose family of Hippocrates of Cos, a key figure in medicine, was heir to this deity.
Already in the Middle Ages, architecture for health was diminished almost to the point of disappearing, since at this time, which had religious ancestry, it was considered that everything related to the body was judged as taboo, as well as access to health, a luxury that might not reach the common people. Despite this, the movements of travelers to religious points resulted in the search for remedies to cure diseases, which led to religious brotherhoods providing palliatives for their healing problems, in such a way that some orders became they constituted as a relief for the homeless.
In this way, the sets dedicated to healing advanced, which since the Renaissance were specializing thanks to the inclination for science in all its aspects, suffice it to mention the anatomical studies of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519). In subsequent centuries, the appearance of architectural ensembles dedicated to medicine was imminent, and for the 20th century, it was a consolidation of what had been occurring intermittently throughout history.
In Mexico, the health system in the viceroyalty was particularly attended by the religious orders, however it was not enough to care for the thousands of those who required the service, which brought as a consequence that from the forties, the regimes revolutionaries were the direct promoters of Health and Education Plans, to provide a solution, at least at that time, to such pressing situations of disease and illiteracy. This is how the institution of the Mexican Institute of Social Security appeared, which in relation to its facilities had the participation of prominent architects, such as Jose Villagran Garcia (1901-1982) y Enrique Yanez de la Fuente (1908-1990).
In Aguascalientes, in the same period, the IMSS was not well received because the large workplaces had their particular way of solving the health problem, as did the Railway Workshops that had their own hospital facilities, and the Other factories preferred to do it privately in existing clinics, such as the Guadalupe Clinic and the Modern Sanatorium.
At present, the IMSS continues its work of caring for the most vulnerable classes and that is why more groups dedicated to health appear every day, such as the Family Medicine Unit No. 7 located at Av. Aguascalientes Poniente 651, with clear architectural trends similar to those designed in the 70s and 80s.
