I had the chance to spend some time this last year at the Rochester, Minnesota campus of the Mayo Clinic. The Mayo campus is a huge facility, comprising over 20 buildings and two hospitals. The doctors, nurses, and medical technicians are of course focused on patient care. But so is the physical environment designed to create an environment of healing.
Being Minnesota, many of the buildings are connected by underground tunnels they call the subway. It allows people to move between spaces during the brutal Minnesota winters without having to venture out-of-doors. However, the subways are designed to have frequent openings into grand architectural spaces with lots of sources of natural light, so there are only a few places where you feel like you might be underground at all.
Being a geologist, I was particularly impressed with the diversity of the extensive stone floor and wall coverings. The numerous natural stones gave different areas a different accent color that was tastefully picked up by other architectural finishes. Marble, granite, and travertine tile covered many of the walls.
Fountains were also used to good effect. You may encounter the gentle sound of water trickling over the stone walls and into cascading levels of pools.
And another inspiring feature of the spaces was the numerous grand pianos placed around the facility. At various times people would sit and play, filling their immediate space with warm music. Patients and their families, who often have time to kill between appointments, would gather to listen. Singers often accompanied the pianist, and frequently the crowd would join in song if it was a well-known tune.
I think that those who played were students, people from the community who came by to play for a spell, and anyone who just wanted to sit and play. There was never a schedule posted that I saw. Someone would just start, and the music would connect everyone together, if even for a brief moment, reminding us that for that moment, we are alive.
Other interesting facts about the natural world, and anything that strikes my interest, can be found at Boneblogger.com
