Asylum architecture
Encyclopedia
Asylum Architecture in the United States
, including the architecture of psychiatric hospitals, has had an impact on the changing methods of treating the insane in the United States
during the nineteenth century. The architecture was considered part of the cure. Doctors believed that ninety per cent of insanity cases were curable, but only if treated outside the home, in large-scale buildings. Nineteenth-century psychiatrists considered the architecture
of insane asylums, especially the planning, to be one of the most powerful tools for the treatment of the insane, targeting the social in addition to the biological factors that would help facilitate the treatment of mental illnesses. The construction and usage of these quasi-public buildings, commonly known as insane asylums or more crudely as “loony bins” or “nuthouses,” served to legitimize developing ideas in psychiatry
. There were about 300 psychiatric hospitals constructed in the United States before 1900.
Asylum architecture is notable for the wide ranging styles. The plans, however, were often similar:
Historic Asylums of America
, as it was called, argued that patients should be unchained, granted respect, encouraged to perform occupational tasks (like farming, carpentry, or laundry), and allowed to stroll the grounds with an attendant and attend occasional dances. While the moral treatment could, with difficulty, be employed in an old house or adapted almshouse
, this situation was considered a sad compromise. In the United States, doctors developed a highly specialized building type for 250 patients. Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride
devised a widely applicable set of planning principles that ensured classification by type of illness, ease of surveillance, short wards for good ventilation, and clarity of circulation.Kirkbride Buildings
The buildings helped establish psychiatry as a profession, because the asylum was the only setting for the practice of psychiatry in the nineteenth century, there were no out-patient visits, no doctors’ offices. Professional medical journals were replete with articles on architecture, a constant preoccupation for the asylum superintendent, and architects ventured opinions about the proper classification of patients.
town of Gheel, where citizens looked after mentally ill people who for centuries gathered there to worship at the shrine of St. Dymphna, the patron saint of lunatics. Dr. John Galt romanticized this medieval model as an ideal setting for the cure of the disease, thus causing a rift among the self-named “brethren” of asylum superintendents.
Some doctors proposed that the insane be treated on farms or in the community, which is some ways was a precursor to "Care in the Community
" in the twentieth century. The concept was notably different, however, from de-institutionalization of the latter half of the twentieth century.
, Andrew Jackson Downing
, Samuel Sloan, Thomas U. Walter
, Frederick Clarke Withers
, Calvert Vaux
, Frederick Law Olmsted
, and H.H. Richardson designed asylum grounds and buildings.
, which focused attention on mental illness as a result of physical causes, the environment ceased to seem like an important cause or likely cure, and a new generation of doctors regarded architecture as irrelevant to the practice of psychiatric medicine.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, including the architecture of psychiatric hospitals, has had an impact on the changing methods of treating the insane in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the nineteenth century. The architecture was considered part of the cure. Doctors believed that ninety per cent of insanity cases were curable, but only if treated outside the home, in large-scale buildings. Nineteenth-century psychiatrists considered the architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
of insane asylums, especially the planning, to be one of the most powerful tools for the treatment of the insane, targeting the social in addition to the biological factors that would help facilitate the treatment of mental illnesses. The construction and usage of these quasi-public buildings, commonly known as insane asylums or more crudely as “loony bins” or “nuthouses,” served to legitimize developing ideas in psychiatry
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
. There were about 300 psychiatric hospitals constructed in the United States before 1900.
Asylum architecture is notable for the wide ranging styles. The plans, however, were often similar:
Historic Asylums of America
Theory and Development of Asylum Architecture
The medical profession of psychiatry, known as "Asylum Medicine" from about 1830 on, in insane hospitals was instrumental in the planning and development of asylum architecture. Nineteenth-century philosophers and architectural theorists argued that the natural and built environment shaped behavior. The doctors who promoted the establishment of mental hospitals used the same rhetoric as social reformers and park enthusiasts: that nature was curative, exercise therapeutic, and the city a source of vice. Early psychiatrists assumed that mental derangement was caused by environmental factors, particularly the tensions present in the individual’s current domestic or social environment, which in turn suggested that a changed setting might alleviate psychic pain. Psychiatrists, also known as medical superintendents, collaborated with architects to enhance the new social environment of the insane asylum. A series of plans, such as the Kirkbride plan and the Cottage plan, resulted from this collaboration, developed using theories that would help facilitate the treatment of patients.The Kirkbride Plan
The Quaker reformers, including Samuel Tuke, who promoted the moral treatmentMoral treatment
Moral treatment was an approach to mental disorder based on humane psychosocial care or moral discipline that emerged in the 18th century and came to the fore for much of the 19th century, deriving partly from psychiatry or psychology and partly from religious or moral concerns...
, as it was called, argued that patients should be unchained, granted respect, encouraged to perform occupational tasks (like farming, carpentry, or laundry), and allowed to stroll the grounds with an attendant and attend occasional dances. While the moral treatment could, with difficulty, be employed in an old house or adapted almshouse
Almshouse
Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...
, this situation was considered a sad compromise. In the United States, doctors developed a highly specialized building type for 250 patients. Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride
Thomas Story Kirkbride
Thomas Story Kirkbride was a physician, advocate for the mentally ill, and founder of the Association of Medical Superintendents of American Institutions for the Insane , a precursor to the American Psychiatric Association.-Early career:Born into a Quaker family in Morrisville, Pennsylvania,...
devised a widely applicable set of planning principles that ensured classification by type of illness, ease of surveillance, short wards for good ventilation, and clarity of circulation.Kirkbride Buildings
The buildings helped establish psychiatry as a profession, because the asylum was the only setting for the practice of psychiatry in the nineteenth century, there were no out-patient visits, no doctors’ offices. Professional medical journals were replete with articles on architecture, a constant preoccupation for the asylum superintendent, and architects ventured opinions about the proper classification of patients.
The Cottage Plan
The Kirkbride Plan dominated asylum building. The Kirkbride plan, also called the linear plan, tended to produce very large, long structures. By the middle of the nineteenth century, some doctors complained that large monolithic asylums had not lived up to their expectations. But psychiatrists did not immediately abandon their belief in the therapeutic environment; instead, they argued for a different therapeutic environment. Clinging to a belief that architecture influenced human conduct, they proposed smaller cottage-like structures to replace the Kirkbride-plan hospitals. These cottages were to be arranged in a village, an homage to the BelgianBelgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
town of Gheel, where citizens looked after mentally ill people who for centuries gathered there to worship at the shrine of St. Dymphna, the patron saint of lunatics. Dr. John Galt romanticized this medieval model as an ideal setting for the cure of the disease, thus causing a rift among the self-named “brethren” of asylum superintendents.
Some doctors proposed that the insane be treated on farms or in the community, which is some ways was a precursor to "Care in the Community
Care in the Community
Care in the Community is the British policy of deinstitutionalization, treating and caring for physically and mentally disabled people in their homes rather than in an institution...
" in the twentieth century. The concept was notably different, however, from de-institutionalization of the latter half of the twentieth century.
First Purpose Built Asylum
The first purpose-built asylum in the United States was the Public Hospital in Virginia of 1770. It housed mentally ill people as well as developmentally disabled people. The Public Hospital was reconstructed in 1986. It is now a museum at Colonial Williamsburg. Colonial WilliamsburgColonial Williamsburg
Colonial Williamsburg is the private foundation representing the historic district of the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. The district includes buildings dating from 1699 to 1780 which made colonial Virginia's capital. The capital straddled the boundary of the original shires of Virginia —...
Major Architects and the Kirkbride Plan
At the peak of the success of the Kirkbride plan, these hospitals were technological marvels that demonstrated advanced fireproof construction, state-of-the-art heating and ventilation, and fresh water delivery systems; some had their own railroads. They were surrounded by well-designed picturesque gardens that predate many public parks. Accomplished architects, including John Haviland, John NotmanJohn Notman
John Notman was a Scottish-born American architect, who settled in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is remembered for his churches, and for popularizing the Italianate style and the use of brownstone.-Career:...
, Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing
Andrew Jackson Downing was an American landscape designer, horticulturalist, and writer, a prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival style in the United States, and editor of The Horticulturist magazine...
, Samuel Sloan, Thomas U. Walter
Thomas U. Walter
Thomas Ustick Walter of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania was an American architect, the dean of American architecture between the 1820 death of Benjamin Latrobe and the emergence of H.H. Richardson in the 1870s...
, Frederick Clarke Withers
Frederick Clarke Withers
Frederick Clarke Withers was an successful English architect in America, especially renowned for his Gothic Revival church designs.-Biography:...
, Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux
Calvert Vaux , was an architect and landscape designer. He is best remembered as the co-designer , of New York's Central Park....
, Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted
Frederick Law Olmsted was an American journalist, social critic, public administrator, and landscape designer. He is popularly considered to be the father of American landscape architecture, although many scholars have bestowed that title upon Andrew Jackson Downing...
, and H.H. Richardson designed asylum grounds and buildings.
Decline
The complicated decline of the large-scale insane asylum was caused partly by overcrowding and neglect, but also by massive changes in the practice of psychiatry. With the ascent of neurologyNeurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
, which focused attention on mental illness as a result of physical causes, the environment ceased to seem like an important cause or likely cure, and a new generation of doctors regarded architecture as irrelevant to the practice of psychiatric medicine.