Cavan may be known as 'the lakeland county' but its topography is also dominated by its undulating drumlins. The landscape surrounding Cavan town cradles Cavan General Hospital, which nestles into a south-facing slope. This sensitivity to a building’s site is typical of architect Andy Devane (1917 – 2000). His name might still be unfamiliar, but he has designed some of the country’s best-known hospitals.
In 1976, the Department of Health gave the go-ahead for a public hospital to service Cavan along with parts of Leitrim, Monaghan, Meath, Westmeath and Longford (1). The North Western Health Board chose a 19.5ha site to the north of Cavan town for the new hospital complex; Sisk & Son Ltd were the main contractor and the architects were Robinson Keefe & Devane Architects. The late Andy Devane led a project team consisting of Dick Kelly, Vincent Delany, Philip O’Reilly, Michael Lahiff, and Peter McGrath as site architect.
The brief was to design a general hospital to provide 334 beds, of which 193 were in-patient acute beds, while 46 were reserved for acute day cases. A further 25 beds were for psychiatric ward and day centre. The hospital also provides a 24-hour emergency service. Additionally, they designed a nurses’ residence and domestic staff residence block.
This was far from Devane’s first hospital. He was part of the design team for Mount Carmel Hospital, Dublin (1950), the Bon Secours Hospital in Galway (1954), the Urological Unit of Meath Hospital (1954), a new ward unit to Temple Street Children’s Hospital (1962), Port Elizabeth Hospital in South Africa (1968), and Tallaght University Hospital (1998).
A practitioner in a medical journal described Devane’s research methodology from working with him on the Meath Street hospital project;
‘[He] made every effort to understand the working of the existing department so that its best features could be preserved, and transferred into proper surroundings. This knowledge was not gained in any facile way. Mr Devane spent many hours in the old unit watching every aspect of its work. There is no doubt that the detailed and all-inclusive manner in which this study was made contributed greatly to the success of the design. During this time he and the surgical director spent countless evenings developing plans so as to co-ordinate surgical and architectural opinion at every point. They did not merely meet at committees every few weeks’ (2)
The hospital is confident in its design, with some bold Brutalist characteristics, but is softened by the surrounding parkland and views to the valley beyond. The plan connects the main entrance to the main route through the hospital by way of a circulation ‘street’, with patient units arrayed as two wings radiating from it. The flat-roofed, low-level wings build up into a central drumlin-like cluster of horizontal elements which gives a sculpted depth to the complex. This system of intersecting ‘streets’ made for more efficient staff/visitor circulation. The result is an series of enclosures – garden courts, rather than a linear building, breaking down the large hospital into smaller, human-scaled units. This approach challenged the more traditional block hospital in order to improve patient and staff experience.
The outer fabric of the building is in low maintenance brick with a smooth-rendered concrete band. Protruding, double-height, oriel windows lighten the brick-clad building mass while expanding interiors and enhancing views. The main entrance has a bush-hammered concrete canopy, curved in plan, connected to the front doors by a colonnade of bush hammered columns. The strength of the front elevation calls for ‘CAVAN GENERAL HOSPITAL’ to be printed simply in the concrete band. Unified detailing extends beyond the hospital buildings bus stops along the perimeter wall to the grounds.
Sections of the hospital show how the project team had to cut into the landscape. Architect Denis Brereton was on a summer placement as an architecture student with RKD when construction began on site and later worked directly under Andy Devane. Denis recently remarked that ‘every aspect is considered in a Devane building and his stamp is all over the hospital in terms of the muted, earthy colours.’ Denis also remembered the challenges of the site: ‘The earthworks were enormous and Sisk were the only contractors who could’ve pulled it off’.’
In 1989, the hospital was completed at a cost of £25 million. It was officially opened by TD Rory O'Hanlon (father of comedian Ardal O’Hanlon), then Minister for Health, in November that year.
150 years of Architecture in Ireland RIAI 1839 - 1989
Cavan General Hospital represents a particular time in Irish hospital architecture. Prioritising patient and staff circulation and open-air spaces such as courtyards may be commonplace in hospitals today, but RKD Architects had already looked beyond functionality to place patent well-being at the centre of their design ethos.
Thanks to Denis Brereton and David Petherbridge of RKD Architects
Read more entries in the 100 Buildings series here
(1) Planning permission obtained from Cavan County Council in 1982.
(2) Stirling, M.W.B. (1963) "The Planning of Urological Departments" in Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. 56 (5): 427.
