Integrated Artworks by Erik A. Frandsen at Goedstrup Regional Hospital, Denmark

Nominee Information

Completed in the Autumn of 2021, Goedstrup Regional Hospital (GRH) is a highly functional and innovative “super-hospital” located north of Herning. The hospital is one of Denmark’s largest healthcare development projects and is setting new benchmarks for future Danish hospital construction.

In collaboration with several capable partners, Arkitema has sketched out the whole of the medical wing of the hospital and designed most of the treatment and ward section. GRH is managed by the Region of Central Denmark and designed in a consortium with AART, Nordic, and Arkitema and in collaboration with Sweco and MOE.

Integrating artworks by Erik A. Frandsen: Challenging the traditional hospital design, GRH has an innovative relationship to art, where artwork in meditative colors by the renowned artist, Erik A. Frandsen, adorns site-specific areas at the hospital. The artworks consist of a combination of larger and smaller scales and have been developed in parallel to achieve a result where the architecture and the art complement each other.

The artworks are composed of several different elements, including eight large concrete walls of 60 square meters each with the artistic expression and motif of life-giving molecules, a torso, and people moving around. In the center of the 375-meter-long foyer, three columns are covered with curved LED screens showing slow-motion footage of chemical and physical processes. In meditative and therapeutic nuances, digital video installations, mosaics, and relics set the ambiance and generate a beautiful and visually attractive setting for patients, employees, and visitors at GRH. Every exit and ward section has its own color to support wayfinding, creatively enhance recovery, and to strengthening the sense of identity.

Erik A. Frandsen’s playfulness with materials and colors shows his characteristic sense of creating humancentric and visually appealing designs. Integrating artworks by Erik A. Frandsen contributes to creating a safer and calmer environment that has a positive impact on the treatment and atmosphere. All essential parts of social sustainability, that makes the building complex as well as the integrated artworks robust against the test of time and adaptable to an ever-changing everyday life at the hospital in the short and long term.

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