Asylum Architecture - Theory and Development of Asylum Architecture

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.