Eugene Sternberg - Medical Buildings: Clinics, Nursing Homes, Hospitals

Medical Buildings: Clinics, Nursing Homes, Hospitals

As was mentioned earlier, some of the earliest architectural commissions received by the Sternberg firm were for the design of medical clinics. Over the years, commissions continued to come to the firm for medical and dental clinics both in the Denver area and for other communities including: Thornton, Pueblo, Delta, Greeley.

In 1957, Sternberg was honored to receive an important commission to design the new headquarters building for the Colorado State Department of Public Health. He also designed a large addition, combining office and clinic facilities, to the Tri-County Health Department Building in Englewood, Colorado.

Sternberg also took a great interest in hospital design, believing that the character of the buildings themselves should contribute to the healing process. His earliest hospital work was for National Jewish Hospital, at first in cooperation with Denver architect Earl Morris and later on his own. He remodeled the Hospital's auditorium in 1955, designed the Friedenheit building in 1956, a new research facility in 1958, and extensively remodeled the B'nai B'rith Building in 1960. His last project for the hospital, completed in 1977, involved a major innovation, combining patient treatment with research facilities in a handsome 11-story red brick masonry building.

In 1957, the Sternberg firm undertook a major addition and remodeling project for the Longmont Hospital. In 1959, a similar commission came from Craig Hospital. 1968 brought the challenging task of remodeling and enlarging the old railroad hospital in Salida.

The only medical project about which Sternberg felt great disappointment was the Wardenberg Student Health Center in Boulder. He had long railed publicly against the phony Romanesque façade architecture of the Colorado University campus in Boulder. What can professors of architecture in Boulder do, he would ask, other than take their students for a tour of the campus and show them what not to do? A long-time champion of Sternberg's talents, Vance Austin, was elected in 1956 to the C.U. Board of Regents. Austin vowed that during his term of office, he would introduce some contemporary architecture onto the campus. He succeeded, against considerable opposition, in having the Wardenberg project awarded to Sternberg's firm, but then unexpectedly left the scene when he was appointed to head the Credit Union National Association in Wisconsin.

Sternberg was left with no political support in his fight against the traditionalist architectural dictates of the Head of the Buildings and Grounds Department. A direct appeal to C. U. President Quigg Newton, beset at the time with multiple institutional problems, failed. In the end, Sternberg had to choose between resigning the commission, which he saw as letting Vance down, and designing the health facility behind the Romanesque façade provided by a Philadelphia firm. Reluctantly he chose the latter, and rarely mentioned that he had anything to do with the project. He was quoted as saying it was his one act of architectural prostitution. Many years later, he was surprised and somewhat comforted when his neurologist son reported that he enjoyed working and seeing patients in the building.

Sternberg's last, and most significant, hospital building was a new Denver General Hospital, for which the architect was selected though a competition conducted by the American Institute of Architects. The entry from Sternberg and Associates was selected out of some 90 applications. The contract was awarded in 1965. During the final design and construction phase, many unexpected challenges arose and it was indeed a signal accomplishment when the project was completed on time in 1967, and under budget.

One type of building project that appealed to Eugene Sternberg was that of nursing homes. Many of these facilities had an unenviable reputation as inhospitable warehouses where chronically sick patients, especially the elderly, passed their last years unhappily. The challenge in designing nursing homes for Sternberg combined his concern for decent housing conditions for the elderly with his deep conviction that the design of the physical environment should contribute to the quality of life of residents and to their healing. His firm undertook to design appropriate facilities for three very different settings.

In 1955, a new Colorado State project, serving those elderly who had some degree of need for medical assistance, was announced. Variously named the Trinidad State Homes for the Aged and the Trinidad State Nursing Home, it was planned to care for 159 "aged persons." The concept behind the project was that of people living in a community designed to encourage mental and physical activity and social interaction, and to provide health care - including an infirmary wing - as needed. From a central core, housing kitchen, dining area, lobby and administrative offices, a series of wings radiate outward assuring each single or double room of some sunshine each day as well as a view of surrounding mountains. For some considerations important to the State Government officials, the architectural contract for this project was awarded to the Denver firm of T, H. Buell and Company, with Eugene D. Sternberg as consultant architect. But the Sternberg firm was the major designer of the project.

In 1962, the Sternberg firm completed a new nursing home addition to the Mennonite Hospital in the town of La Junta in southern Colorado. This was a happy experience for Sternberg, working for a close-knit group that practiced the virtues of mutual assistance and caring for community members in need of support.

The Stovall Care Center, completed in 1977, was the nursing home component of an ambitious planned community development project sponsored by Zion Baptist Church, the oldest black church in Denver. The 30-bed facility, according to its sponsors, has "a single level floor plan, emphasizing safety and efficiency, appealing home-like environment with comfortable lounge areas and a creatively designed dining area." Earlier phases of the development were a community center and a 100-unit high rise senior housing building. At the dedication of the Stovall Center, Gene Sternberg was honored for "his incomparable skill as an architect, coupled with his unfathomable humaneness."