Instructions to assemble a hospital

Ramón Carrillo and the architecture for public health in Argentina (1946-1954)

Abstract

Ramón Carrillo, doctor and the first to be appointed National Minister of Public Health at the beginning of Juan Perón´s presidency, occupied a preponderant place in the reorganization of health services in Argentina. Committed to the eugenic theories of his time and guided by a nationalist ideology, in his controversial work he took care of designing and implementing health policies, and also of delineating the architectural premises to project and manage hospitals, publishing two volumes of “Hospital Theory”, one dedicated to architecture and the other to administration.
An extensive building production carried out during his management corresponds to the image generally associated with the representations of the peronist imaginary, based on the so-called “neo-colonial style” and with which he identified himself, but within the broad program of works there are also modern projects, developed by architects working outside the ministry.
The competition proposed by the Eva Perón Foundation, in the bid to concentrate the hegemony of the symbolic and political capital of the health area, as well as of the economic resources, weakened his capacity for action until finally displacing him, leaving behind a vast material production, theoretical and doctrinaire, stressed both by conservative values and by ideals of technical modernization.