The Civil Hospital building, completed in 1941, is divided into a system of linear blocks pivoting on the central node of services and vertical connections according to a pattern already extensively tested by architects in the city’s school buildings. The massing is defined by a varying number of floors for the different wings and by elevations in which tall, narrow windows, low arched loggias, and full-length balconies are aligned, depending on purpose and orientation, all laid on a solid trachyte plinth. The building, given also its purely functional nature, has undergone heavy expansion and modification over the years, but has retained its iconic significance as an urban signal that, with its bulk, announces the city to those coming from the north.
