From convent to nursing home. Cloisters to maintain memory

Abstract

Medieval convents and monasteries are a fundamental part of Europes historical heritage. Nevertheless, many examples are uninhabited voids located in medium or high-density urban contexts. These buildings have high quality interior and exterior spaces and have hosted self-sufficient communities in the past, who lived in idiorrhythmic co-existence. In this article, reality is analysed through the lens of history. Firstly, several examples of contemporary nursing homes are presented, highlighting how they follow the cloister morphology. Then, a theoretical framework is established to present the parallelism between the desire for retirement that drove the monastic collective in the past, and the phenomenon of retirement present in modern welfare states. Finally, several examples of convents transformed into nursing homes or co-living solutions for the elderly are analysed. All case studies have undergone an internal redistribution of spaces, -adapting the buildings to contemporary standards of care-. However, the general structure and architectural typology is kept, historical heritage is rehabilitated and given a new use, incorporating often forgotten aspects in newly built care-homes, such as the relationship with nature, aesthetic satisfaction, or the relationship to history.