More pictures than patients

7__Art at Addenbrooke’s

More pictures than patients

Never mind that Addenbrooke’s has a worldwide reputation as a teaching hospital and centre of medical excellence. Leave aside the advances it has made in organ transplantation, neurology, cancer, midwifery and paediatrics. The really big thing at Addenbrooke’s is art. The hospital has turned its corridors into galleries, and has even found room for a museum to celebrate its 250-year history. As a result there are more works of art in the hospital than patients, and it is all funded through fundraising and charitable donations.

The long corridor that links the Outpatients’ Department and the Treatment Centre, crossing the main concourse, is the principal exhibition space, and the one most easily accessed by patients and visitors. Exhibitions are regularly hung here, with all proceeds going to the art fund, and there are permanent displays of paintings, drawings and installations. Winning entries from staff competitions also find space on the walls. The collection brings together work by well-known professional artists, like Quentin Blake, and paintings by famous surgeons, like the transplant pioneer Sir Roy Calne. Opposite a bank of lifts is a wall of stunning floor-to-ceiling mosaics by Jim Anderson, showing scenes of daily life. The joie de vivre and detail in these could keep you rooted to the spot for hours – but there are those lifts behind you…

In fact, browsing is not the keynote of a visit to the Addenbrooke’s art collection, unless you are lucky enough to hit a quiet period, a rare thing in a huge modern hospital, and of course corridors must not be blocked. It is difficult to linger anywhere for long, so you will probably need to make several passes at the museum’s exhibits to appreciate them fully.

It’s well worth it, however. Having lovely things to look at in hospital corridors and wards improves the well-being of patients, staff and visitors.

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Address Hills Road, CB2 0QQ, +44 (0)1223 217757, www.act4addenbrookes.org.uk | Getting there Most buses from the city centre and to or from Babraham Road Park & Ride; by car, ideally use the Park & Ride; there is a charge for parking on the hospital site | Hours As for the Outpatients’ Department | Tip On the south-west side of the Addenbrooke’s site you can pick up the DNA Cycle Path, which runs alongside the railway from the hospital to Great Shelford. Part of the national cycle network, the path is painted with over 10,000 coloured stripes and represents just one of the genes in the human genome. Look out for the double helix structures at either end.