Until the middle of the 19th century medical faculties in the Netherlands had a limited number of institutes: a university hospital and an anatomical cabinet. The situation changed when research activities concentrated on the analyses of the processes underlying the functioning of living organisms under normal and pathological circumstances, and on the study of causes of diseases. New research and teaching methods were needed. Emphasis was given to the experimental method, vivisection and the use of registration methods. In addition to the differentiation of professorial chairs this resulted in spatial separation of disciplines. At first separate laboratories of physiology were established, and later on laboratories of pathology, hygiene, pharmacology and anatomy. After this phase of laboratory-foundations a second one followed around World War I. First of all because developments in the different disciplines caused the need of rooms for special purposes (climate rooms, cold-storage chambers, rooms for spectroscopy, etc.) in addition to undifferentiated laboratory-rooms. Moreover, medical faculties showed a tendency towards bridging the gap between clinical and pre-clinical disciplines by concentration of their buildings in a kind of "cite medicale."