Christine Rusche
Cross Cut – Christine Rusche, Alysis Zorggroep, Velp

Following the merger between Velp Hospital, the Zevenaar District Hospital and Rijnstate Hospital in Arnhem, the decision was taken to redistribute the tasks and specialisations, between the various buildings. After major renovation work, the clinic in Velp now only offers day treatments, while the building also houses laboratories and archives.
Designers were called in to produce a unique, individual interior design for each outpatient’s clinic. The Ophthalmology department, for example, is dominated by cool, clear lines with ‘focal points’ and in the Dermatology department, tactile surfaces are the overriding characteristic. Amongst all this visual variety, the stairwell is intended to serve as a linking element.

Christine Rusche saw the stairwell as an inaccessible concrete shaft, in which the stairs themselves are like a free-standing sculpture. Rusche produced a scale model of the stairwell, in which she designed a monochrome palisade of lines and patches based on the elements present in the space such as handrails and window frames. These shapes were subsequently applied to the walls, in a massively distorted form. The sharp lines not only suggest movement continuing throughout the full eight storeys of the building. They also seem to dissect the architectural logic of the stairwell – hence the title Cross Cut. Whereas in any perspective drawing a spatial illusion is established through the use of perspective lines, the architecture to which Rusche relates in her work is specifically undermined by those very same perspective lines. The intensity of the black she uses appears to force the walls to recede, suggesting a non-physical interspace behind the walls’ surface. At the request of Rusche, the handrails, landings and ceilings in the stairwell were all painted in the same neutral grey tone.

Walking up or down the stairs in Velp has become a total experience, which can be started at any level.
In the process of warping, time and space are separated. In the current era, more than space it seems to be time that is becoming compressed. Public spaces and functional spaces are experiencing increasing difficulty in keeping up with the speed with which time is advancing, as a result of ever-accelerating money and communication flows. User requirements change almost daily. Nonetheless, following the latest transformation process, the clinic in Velp, at least, is once again fully up to date.