Hvidovre Hospital - Facade

The Campau brushstroke embedded in the fiber concrete on the facade. 

Public commission for Hvidovre Hospital consisting of five huge wallpaintings and a facade principle in concrete: 
- The red stairway
- The orange stairway 
- The blue stairway 
- The yellow stairway
- The green panopticon
- The grey facade

Developer: Hvidovre Hospital, Region Hovedstaden. 

Handwoven stories from the colorfields makes the blanket warm is a comprehensive art installation at both the old and new Hvidovre Hospital. It includes four stairwells in the old building as well as a panopticon in the new. Taking inspiration from the hospital's wayfinding color system, Ruth Campau has worked with the colors orange, blue, yellow, red, and green to create large, vertical wall decorations that spatially and visually connect the floors in each stairwell. Each painting is composed of different color fields and executed on various materials, resulting in a range of tactile qualities.

Handwoven stories from the colorfields makes the blanket warm was created to establish cohesion between the hospital’s architecture and its function, while also strengthening the connection between the new and the old building. The title of the work refers to the shared human truth that we all wish to be healthy and that we all have something to offer one another. With references to the blanket as an object of care, the work acquires poetic and multilayered meanings. A blanket is used for everything from wrapping a newborn child to covering the injured, thus becoming a universal symbol of the warmth and care essential in a hospital.

In addition to the five indoor paintings, the commission also includes the facade of the new hospital, where Ruth Campau’s characteristic long, vertical brushstrokes are cast directly into the concrete, creating connections between the interior and the exterior. Here, the brushstroke is embedded in fiber-reinforced concrete, forming a band that runs all the way around the ground floor of the hospital and on all its supporting columns. Ruth Campau’s facade enters a dialogue with the facade design of the old hospital. But whereas the concrete on the old hospital facade features mechanical grooves, the new hospital building greets us with a human imprint.