The VCU Medical Center is Virginia Commonwealth University's medical campus located in downtown Richmond, Virginia, in the Court End neighborhood. VCU Medical Center used to be known as the Medical College of Virginia (MCV), which merged with the Richmond Professional Institute in 1968 to create Virginia Commonwealth University. In the 1990s, the Medical College of Virginia Hospitals Authority was created to oversee MCV Hospitals. In 2004, the name of this authority was changed to the VCU Health System, and the MCV Hospitals and surrounding campus were named the VCU Medical Center. The authority oversees the employees and real estate occupied by the five schools within the VCU Medical Center. It was at this time that the MCV Campus moniker was created.
Sanger Hall, part of the VCU medical campus
Finished in 1845, the first MCV building was built in the Egyptian-revival style
Solomon Marable's body was found packed into a barrel of salt for preservation in the dissection room.
The West Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, circa 1942
Egyptian Revival is an architectural style that uses the motifs and imagery of ancient Egypt. It is attributed generally to the public awareness of ancient Egyptian monuments generated by Napoleon's conquest of Egypt and Admiral Nelson's defeat of the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile in 1798. Napoleon took a scientific expedition with him to Egypt. Publication of the expedition's work, the Description de l'Égypte, began in 1809 and was published as a series through 1826. The size and monumentality of the façades discovered during his adventure cemented the hold of Egyptian aesthetics on the Parisian elite. However, works of art and architecture in the Egyptian style had been made or built occasionally on the European continent since the time of the Renaissance.
Image: Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly Shepherd, Metropolitan Improvements (1828), p 295 (edited)
Image: Neues Museum Aegyptischer Hof
Image: 2043 05370 De Grote Tempel van de vrijmetselaarsloge Les Amis Philanthropes
Image: Egyptian Theatre on Main St, Delta, Colorado