SPINE WALL
Peter Marigold, Artist
Client: Multiplex Construction Europe Ltd. and NHS Lothian
Funded by: NHS Lothian Charity’s Tonic Arts Programme
Edinburgh Children’s Hospital Charity
A 180-meter-long textured wall acts as a backbone to the NHS Lothian hospital building, linking internal and external approaches. Peter Marigold's design for The Spine Wall features three-dimensional skin textures taken from one representative the hospital services.
“I wanted to investigate textures and shapes of skin at microscopic levels and how these seem both utterly familiar and yet equally mysterious. I also wanted to reverse the idea that the hospital is simply a container of humans, but instead, the building is created by the people who inhabit it.” – Peter Marigold, Artist
The patterns found in the skin are tiled and then staggered and scattered across the wall, only coming together to form complete images in key parts of the hospital. The intention was to create an ambiguity as to what these concrete textures might be; a visitor to the hospital might visit several times before they discover the complete image. Prior to this, they might see the panels simply as stone or another familiar natural pattern. This project is intended to reveal itself to hospital visitors and patients slowly; a double take played out over a long period of time.
The Spine Wall both signifies the atrium as a distinctive space and leads visitors into the building from the point you arrive on the campus, through to the reception desks and beyond. The texture is organic and brings a human element into the clinical environment.
