In early January, the Chinese Government recognized that Wuhan had become the epicentre of the COVID-19 epidemic. It responded to this public health crisis with a well publicized effort to construct, in ten days, two massive hospitals for a total of 2,500 patients, using prefabricated modular rooms. The purpose of the project was threefold: to isolate those infected with the virus, to provide opportunities for treatment, and to convince a skeptical world that the government was on top of the situation.
Watching the effort to provide the citizens of Wuhan with instant hospitals brought to mind a large-format, handsomely illustrated catalogue that was published 125 years ago by the Danish-German firm Christoph & Unmack. I had discovered a copy of Transportabeles Baracken-Lazareth für 200 Kranke (Portable Hut Hospital for 200 Patients) in the Berlin State Library while researching the history of the barrack-hut. The catalogue presented a Red Cross-approved, prefabricated, demountable emergency hospital, for use in war or during epidemics, in four coloured lithographs captioned in German, French, English, Russian, Danish, and Ottoman-Turkish. The pictures gave the potential purchaser?most likely a national Red Cross organization, a public health department, or the medical service of a national army?an opportunity to immediately assess and comprehend the hutted hospital as a tool that might do some good in the world. A sick ward for 20 patients (in summer) and 17 patients (...