Design for Control: Surgery, Science, and Space at the Royal Victoria Hospital, Montreal, 1893–1956

Abstract

In this paper we explore the relationship of modern architecture and modern surgery in the twentieth century. Our central argument is that environments designed for surgery in the modern hospital became more like laboratories at the end of a remarkable metamorphosis, which we explain through three distinct types of spaces in a particularly significant case study, the Royal Victoria Hospital (RVH) in Montreal, Quebec. As the changing design of surgical spaces constitutes our primary evidence, our approach engages the methods of material culture and material history, a methodology infrequently used in the history of science and medicine. In turn, in order to interpret the changes in operating room design, we situate them in the context of the history of surgery. The architecture of health care both illustrates and shapes the identity of patients and doctors, as well as their inter-relationship. It structures surgeons' activities and expresses their status as actors, as well as reinforcing specific scientific theories. Thus, spatial structures like operating rooms can be understood as material evidence of ongoing changes in the status and self-image of surgeons.