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
Read more about Asylum Architecture: Theory and Development of Asylum Architecture, First Purpose Built Asylum, Major Architects and The Kirkbride Plan, Decline
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