Name: Solarium / Sun Parlor
Architect: John Dempwolf
Build Date: 1912
Type: Patient Treatment
Number of Buildings: 1
Demolished?: No
Current Building #: 12
Alternate Names:
 -Medical Building
 -Logan Building
 -Vista Dome
Special Features:
 -Originally built with a copper and glass roof.
SEE IT ON A MAP: Map 1 (Building is highlighted in yellow)

Completed in 1912, the Sun Parlor featured a very unique copper and glass dome, topped off with a copper belvedere. The first floor of the building consisted of a large round open area. Looking up at the axis of the dome at night you would see a cluster of ten lights, while forty more lights ringed the outer edge of the dome. The large room was used for the annual "Masked Ball" as well as dance classes and calisthenics in the winter months. Also inside the building were drug rooms on both the first floor and in the basement. The presence of the drug rooms could suggest that the building was used for mass inoculations,  or it may have simply been a central and secure location for storing the medicines. In the basement was an open sixty foot semi circle divided into pie sliced shaped sections, these sections were used as work areas. The Sun Parlor was one of the few building at the hospital that men and women were allowed of congregate together, it was also one of the few that had men and women's toilets. In 1951 a new Admissions Building was built directly in front of the solarium. The main entrance to the solarium was removed and replace with a hallway that connected to the rear of the new Admissions Building. Also sometime in the mid twentieth century the glass roof was replaced with a solid, more traditional roof. While connecting the solarium to the new Admissions Building and adding a more durable room was surely more convenient for patients and staff it effectively destroyed the most unique features of the Solarium.

 

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