paimio sanatorium

Chapter 1 | Introduction

cleanliness, with the priority in design on hygienic surfaces, medical applications and

financially and ideologically motivated solutions. She argued that, in the case of inter-

war period hospitals, it was difficult to differentiate whether a certain solution stemmed

from an attempt to create and maintain an image of cleanliness or to prevent the

transmission of diseases.^249 She maintained that, in addition to the countless cleaning

devices, there were numerous design details for fitting doors, windows, wall foundations,

medicine cabinets, lavatories and even ventilators seamlessly onto the wall surface.^250

Hygiene may also have a symbolic representation, such as the white walls favoured by

modernists. The New Zealand-born architectural scholar Mark Wigley’s study, White

Walls, Designer Dresses, explored the aesthetic of white walls. He argued that white walls

incorporate racial and gender- related and sexual meaning, and are by no means neutral

or innocent.^251

249 Adams 2008, p. 126.

250 Adams 2008, p. 126.

251 Wigley 1995, p. 359; The Finnish art historian Anne Mäkinen has also studied the symbolism of white walls in

military hospitals in the inter-war period. Mäkinen 2000.