Why scrap four downtown hospitals in order to build a superhospital in the west ends Glen Yards?
An architect makes the case against the McGill University Health Centre COMMENTARY by PIETER SIJPKES McGill University is planning a radical overhaul of Montreal’s hospital system: shutting down the Royal Victoria, Montreal General, Montreal Children’s and the Neurological Hospitals and building a new facility at the former Glen Yards south of Vendôme metro. In this commentary, Pieter Sijpkes, an associate professor at the McGill School of Architecture, questions the approach taken by the planners. Most of us do not like to think about hospitals until we actually visit one, either as a patient or as a visitor. But in recent months the idea of a new, large facility replacing four smaller, well-established ones, has made the adrenaline flow in Montreal’s “anglo” veins. And rightly so. The issue at hand is not only a McGill one. The McGill University Health Centre (MUHC) proposal is foremost an issue of the Montreal English-speaking community. And the proposal made by the planners of the
