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Biomedicine in museums

Medical chic

By January 18, 2007No Comments

Given all these tens of thousands of public and private medical clinics around the world that all look the same — how can one separate the functional trivia from the truly chic. Now Bill T. at Cool Hunter has found the true nugget: Singapore’s The Clinic, which doesn’t look, smell or sound (or work) like any other clinic:

Upstairs, The Clinic offers a dining experience like no other. Dine from kidney shaped surgical pans, and drink through test tubes. The avant- guard menu is second to none and oddly enough well suited to the surroundings (from Cool Hunter’s website, better resolution pic here).

Spanning over 15,000 sq ft of space, The Clinic resembles an organized maze with pill shaped rooms interlocking into one another for easy access. The Clinic has two floors. The first fulfills your entertainment requirements, with a number of bars, a dance club, and merchandise store. The entire floor is clinic inspired, that is to say ‘hospital chic’ adorned. That’s where artist Damien Hirst comes in. His pop art graces the walls of The Clinic, whilst his vision goes even further. Syringes, drips, pills and hospital whites are the order of the day in The Clinics decor. This satirical look at medical chic is both stunning and entertaining.

This merger of medical museum, restaurant and art exhibition — “Think Damien Hirst on Prozac turned gourmet, and you get the idea” — is truly inspirational. We’ve been thinking of establishing a small restaurant in the former smallpox inoculation building in the backyard, the little yellow house that now contains 700 medieval leprosy skeletons and a large assortment of pathological skeletal specimens. So maybe this is the way forward … other ideas are welcome.

The Clinic’s own website is pretty inspirational too (– and thanks to Adam for finding the Cool Hunter).

Thomas Söderqvist

Author Thomas Söderqvist

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