After Chris Buske of Algonquin delivered a son at Alexian Brothers Medical Center in Elk Grove Village, she rested comfortably in a beautiful brass bed in a room decorated in mauves and beiges. Her husband, Ron, relaxed in a leather recliner.
“It was so comfortable, it was like being in a luxury hotel,” Buske said. “It was wonderful.”
Yet 30 years ago, when Buske was born in the same hospital, things were all white and sterile looking. Part of that transformation has to do with Brother Valentino Bianco.
Since the late 1980s, Bianco has helped revolutionize the interior design of Alexian Brothers Medical Center. He has filled it with color and many greens and leaves, symbols of hope and life. And what was once harsh became soft, in a spirit that mirrors the mission of the Alexian Brothers, a Catholic order began 600 years ago: to care for others, especially the sick.
“This is pretty unique for a hospital,” said Mary Ann Magnifico, vice president of ancillary services at Alexian Brothers. “Brother Val has such a unique concept. I’m an engineer, so I see everything in black and white, while he takes things I would never think of and pulls them together so well.”
Although Bianco has been doing art and design work all his life, he started doing it full time in 1972. When he came to Alexian Brothers 11 years ago, his role was to bring the medical center up to date with a new look.
As facilities designer and coordinator, he is responsible for complete design of the interior space, architectural works and some of the exterior.
Bianco’s work even extends to the medical center’s annual Garden Ball, where he comes up with the theme and designs the menu, invitations and centerpieces.
When Bianco arrived, much of the facility reeked of drabness. The hallway had 13 different colors, and cheap wallpaper decorated the maternity ward and nursery.
“It was the ugliest thing I ever saw,” Bianco said. “I thought I was going to Toys R Us; the only thing missing was the toys.” So all that has been changed–the walls, carpeting, furniture, art work.
Although he had no formal art education, he could see things and figure them out. His artistic career started when he was a child; at the age of 10, he did a landscape that won the Ohio state champion of art contest for students through grade 12. The audience, eager to know how he had learned to paint so well, was amused when Bianco said he simply took some house paint out of the garage and started painting.
Once he started to use his artistic talents, he never stopped.
At Alexian Brothers, “I’m just doing one thing after another,” he said. “I’ve got 10 projects going on right now.”
A recent success story is his design for the Community Family Health Center, a joint effort between Alexian Brothers and Northwest Community Healthcare. The clinic for the poor, tucked in a strip mall with a video store, Mexican food store and hair design shop on Algonquin Road in Mt. Prospect, opened in January 1998.
The statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the patron saint of Mexico, that adorns the waiting room of the clinic is an example of the healing symbols Bianco uses throughout his work. Many of the clinic’s patients are from Mexico, and Bianco wanted them to feel comfort from a symbol that is important to their culture.
An attractive plum and teal color scheme, geometric patterned carpeting and off-white vertical blinds welcome patients into the waiting clinic. In the corner of the room, a cozy children’s spot — with television, books and pictures with children’s themes — invites kids to play together and feel at home.
Bianco pulled items out of the archives — storage rooms where he maintains an inventory of furniture and materials from a variety of sources, which he uses to furnish and decorate the clinic, but always with the dignity of the patient in mind.
“Everything may be free, but you won’t see a piece of junk in here,” Bianco said. “That’s not the way we operate. This is a classy place where everything looks brand new.”
In fact, it’s so beautiful and restful that sometimes people like to come early for their appointments, said Nurse Manager Chris Hess.
“This is a wonderful outreach, and we’re very proud of it,” Hess said. “I think Brother Val is the most talented and wonderful person in the whole world, and a very wonderful human being.”
Bianco also has brought a refreshing touch to the Women’s Center with beautiful furnishings that you’d see in an upscale store, Oriental carpets, soft combination of colors and textures, and images of women.
“Mammography can be very stressful for women,” Bianco said. “I want them to have a relaxed atmosphere, so they’re not nervous, a warm place where they can meet people and see how wonderful other people are.”
In the Cancer Care Center, visitors can have a piece of fresh fruit or a muffin as they wait to see the doctors in comfortable high-back chairs amid beautiful surroundings.
Very fussy about pictures, Bianco carefully selects just the right one for a particular spot. “Here (in the Cancer Care Center), I didn’t want to use anything abstract with patients, something they may not understand,” he said. “I want them to feel at home.”
Bianco started the cafeteria’s popular deli bar and designed a sandwich called the Bianco Special: a thick stack of lettuce, tomato, turkey, blue cheese, 6-7 bacon slices between two slices of bread served with dijon mustard, always a hot item on the menu at the Alexian Brothers cafeteria.
Ron Buck, director of community service at Northwest Community Healthcare, partner in the clinic project, says Bianco has a contagious spirit.
“The clinic has his touch of class . . . in decorating and bringing colors and textures together to really make the clinic very inviting,” Buck says. “He has a real knack for that.”
As a young Brother, Bianco was a hospital patient for an extended period of time and experienced first-hand the power of color. “I was very depressed myself with all the corny colors around me, and thought it would be so nice to have something more inviting.”
Today, as Bianco uses every medium throughout Alexian Brothers Medical Center to create an uplifting, healing atmosphere where patients can feel comfortable, there’s one certainty, he says. “You won’t find any gray in this hospital.”
