The State Institute of National Health was built at the same time as the Kramáre housing estate. The sloping terrain of this area, located near the Malé Karpaty nature reserve and benefiting from favorable prevailing wind directions, had already made it an ideal site in previous decades for the construction of a concentrated medical complex of national significance. The first building completed here in 1967 was the municipal hospital, followed by the construction of scientific and research institutes and the children’s university hospital. On the northern edge of the development, this infrastructure was complemented by the construction of a state sanatorium, originally intended for the therapeutic and preventive care of the diplomatic corps.
Architect Štefan Imrich, the designer of several significant healthcare complexes, conceived the building as a morphologically simple structure in the shape of an elongated cross, featuring distinct horizontal divisions and continuous balconies. The building has five above-ground floors and is laid out as a multi-wing complex. The basement and first floor house technical and support facilities, the operating wing, the intensive care unit (ICU), and the pharmacy, along with the main entrance areas. The second through fifth floors house the individual inpatient wards with their respective ancillary facilities.
Today, the building serves as the headquarters of the National Cancer Institute, which was originally intended to be located in the building that now houses the National Institute of Heart and Vascular Diseases. The Cancer Institute complex now comprises several buildings and extensions, though the original character of the main structure has been preserved.
author of the description: Laura Krišteková
Bibliography:
MÜLLER, Rajmund – RAJCHL, Jaroslav – VÍTEK, Jaroslav – ŠAVLÍK, Milan. 1988. Rozvoj zdravotníckej výstavby v Slovenskej socialistickej republike: 40 rokov zdravotníckej projekcie – 20 rokov Zdravoprojektu. Martin: Osveta..
STRNADEL, Zdeněk. Občanské stavby: Československé a evropské nemocnice z druhé poloviny XX. století. Brno, Vysoké učení technické 1988. s. 27.
