The healing power of Bauhaus at London's St Mary's hospital

The work of Josef and Anni Albers has given a bright, bold new look to a children’s intensive care unit

The role of art in hospitals rarely extends beyond hanging pictures on the wall. But for Josef and Anni Albers, art was always much more than that. Both pioneers of modernism, the couple met in 1922 at the Bauhaus school, an establishment with a revolutionary approach to art. Bauhaus blurred the boundaries between craft, design and fine art and championed the concept of gesamtkunstwerk: the complete work of art, typically in the form of a house.

But why not a hospital department? That was the thinking of the Albers Foundation which, since the couple’s deaths late last century, has worked to continue their legacy. “Josef and Anni both believed that what we experience through our eyes can divert and elate us in unparalleled ways,” explains Nicholas Fox Weber, the foundation’s director. Taking inspiration from the Albers’ geometric patterns and confident use of colour, the foundation has created a bold new look for the children’s intensive care unit at St Mary’s hospital, London.

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