County Hospital in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfăntu Gheorghe)
Description
“And then in autumn (1913), I obtained my most significant architectural commission up to this point, and in an entirely peculiar way as well, the duties as designer and construction overseer for the building of the public hospital of Háromszék County.” (Kós Károly: Életrajz. Szerk.: Benkő Samu. Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó–Kriterion, Budapest–Bukarest, 1991. 126.)
Dr. Kristóf Fogolyán, the director of the County Hospital in Sepsiszentgyörgy (Sfăntu Gheorghe) whose name has been given to the present-day County Emergency Hospital, had been working hard since 1906 to have a modern healthcare complex built. Since neither the local committee nor the county leadership supported construction according to the plans prepared by the technical director authorized by the Ministry of the Interior, the head counsellor Bierbauer, they requested that Károly Kós draft new designs. According to their recommendations, it should be built according to the pavilion system considered modern at the time on the several-hectare eastern hillside above the old hospital and near the town center. In addition, this should be done in such a way that its exterior appearance should express “the Székely city and Székely people’s unique mentality of form and architecture.” Kós worked out the design program in collaboration with the head physician and committee member Dr. Fogolyán. Following a survey of a few modern Western European hospital projects, they decided on the functions of the various pavilions, the spaces and arrangement of each of these, as well as the location of the individual buildings on the site, and finally the possibilities for the transportation network.
The draft plans were prepared in the winter of 1913-1914, and the construction plans were made between 1914 and 1918. The preparation of the site began in the autumn of 1915, but the work was stopped in the summer of the next year. The project was continued after the war until 1926, then according to a new concept in 1938-39 and in 1941-42, all the way up to the present day.
The buildings designed by Károly Kós for the former Franz Joseph Public Hospital:
Bibliography
Kónya Ádám: Kós Károly-épületek Sepsiszentgyörgyön. In: Aluta V. évf., 1973 (219–236.)
Kós Károly: Életrajz. Szerk.: Benkő Samu. Szépirodalmi Könyvkiadó–Kriterion, Budapest–Bukarest, 1991 (126–128., 134–135.)
Csutak Vilmos: Közösség és Művelődés. Kriterion, Bukarest, 1993
Koczka György, dr.–Nagy Lajos, dr.: Általános történeti áttekintés. In: Emlékkönyv. A Sepsiszentgyörgyi Kórház 145 éve. Sepsiszentgyörgy, 1998 (9–20.)
Gall, Anthony: Kós Károly műhelye – tanulmány és adattár. Mundus Magyar Egyetemi Kiadó, Budapest, 2002 (278–282.) [1914-1]
Fabó Beáta–Anthony Gall: „Napkeletről jöttem nagy palotás rakott városba kerültem”. Kós Károly világa 1907–1914. Budapest Főváros Levéltára, 2014 (176.)
Gall, Anthony: Kós Károly és Sepsiszentgyörgy – a székely nemzetnek székely kultúrházat akartam. Székely Nemzeti Múzeum, Sepsiszentgyörgy, 2015 (134–139.)
Gall, Anthony: Kós Károly (Az építészet mesterei. Sorozatszerk.: Sisa József). Holnap Kiadó, Budapest, 2019 (127–132.)
