Hospital of Silandro

Hard Lasa marble for a durable exterior façade

What colour should a hospital have on the outside? For the new Silandro (Schlanders) District Hospital, which opened in 2005, the colour white as a symbolic colour for medical professions was an obvious option. The choice of the special façade cladding with white marble slabs of the Lasa marble commercial varieties LASA BIANCO ORTLES^® and LASA BIANCO NUVOLATO^® was a conscious decision of the architect and planner Kurt Stecher, who himself comes from the Venosta (Vinschgau) Valley. "Marble is a natural resource that has the right place in a public building because its durability is planned for many years," says Stecher.

Stecher, who prefers predominantly natural materials for his buildings, is convinced that the cladding of the entire exterior façade of the new district hospital building in the capital of the South Tyrolean valley community with refined Lasa marble was the right decision. Especially in the Venosta (Vinschgau) Valley, where the Lasa marble has its origins and home, the architect Stecher can also fall back on a natural stone like Lasa marble for a purpose-related public building. But as a building - i.e. as a house - it also has its own architectural language. And like any other building, such a relevant public functional building also makes reference to place and landscape. From these basic principles, Stecher divided the building into the section’s architecture, art and landscape. The eight-storey new building was planned as early as 1986 and was erected during a construction period from 1992 to 2005. Lasa Marmo produced the large-format façade claddings in the varieties LASA BIANCO ORTLES^® and LASA BIANCO NUVOLATO^® in 1999 and 2000. All surfaces of the 3 cm thick façade panels were sanded.