Visite guidée "L'Hôpital Mémorial France-Etats-Unis de Saint-Lô : un hôpital pour la vie

To mark the 80th anniversary of the Normandy landings, the Musée d?Art et d?Histoire is organizing an exhibition from October 19, 2024 to January 5, 2025, entitled L?hôpital Mémorial France-Etats-Unis de Saint-Lô : un hôpital pour la vie.

The aim of the exhibition is to show how Paul Nelson, the chief architect, first implemented his theoretical research on hospital architecture, and how his technical innovations served a humanist vision of care.

After a brief history of the Saint-Louis hospitals, both permanent and temporary, that preceded it, the exhibition presents the various innovations of the Memorial Hospital and the artistic choices, particularly the use of color, that characterize it. In addition to the presentation of previously unpublished archives, the exhibition is based on the reconstitution of furniture sets (waiting room, children?s room) made possible thanks to the exceptional partnership of the Centre Hospitalier Mémorial France Etats-Unis.

The chronological scope of the exhibition is fairly limited, as it focuses on the years of (re)construction and the hospital?s inauguration in 1956, but does not cover the successive changes it has undergone since then. In conclusion, the exhibition looks at the dissemination of innovations from the "most interesting post-war project", and the media coverage of this titanic construction project.