Alcoitão Rehabilitation Medicine Center

Inaugurated in 1966, the Alcoitão Rehabilitation Medicine Center is not only one of the most important health facilities in the country but also a building imagined, designed, and erected from its roots entirely with rehabilitation in mind. With text by Luísa Arruda and photographs by Rui Morais de Sousa, this book – richly illustrated – is dedicated to the history of the planning and construction of the Center conceived and carried out by the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa, the institution that manages it. From the first projects in 1955 and the funding from Totobola to the training of staff and the crucial involvement of José Guilherme de Melo e Castro, future provider of the Santa Casa, and Vítor Santana Carlos, the first director and great clinical mentor of its planning, the book details the entire process from the first idea to its organization. It also reveals the philosophy and work of its architecture and construction, presenting the projects, the sculpture, and the design of the furniture, not forgetting the important landscape environment, a significant element in the recovery of the inpatients.History of the rehabilitation medicine project - the architecture and the art.