If hospitals today seem to be built like boxes which hundreds of people enter with different diseases, it was not always so. Until the early 20th century, natural ventilation and daylight were considered primary architectural provisions for a hospital building, initially provided by Italian Renaissance architects.
By the 1950s, with the advent of antibiotics and improved aseptic practices, the medical establishment started believing that patient health could be maintained regardless of room design. (Some doctors even preferred the total environmental control offered by air-conditioning, central heating, and electric lighting.) Windows were no longer necessary for healthy hospitals. . .