Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

The Fergus Falls State Hospital Kirkbride building may become the setting for a movie. According to the Fergus Falls Daily Journal, Twin Cities filmmaker Dav Kaufman is working on a new film and has the RTC specifically in mind as its location: Filmmaker Has RTC in Sight.

Session 9 did a lot to introduce Danvers State Hospital to the world. While it sounds like this movie will be a low budget affair, there’s a chance it’ll become something of a cult favorite like Session 9, and could bring the RTC some broader, national exposure if it gets made. Hopefully it will and the quality of the film will be relatively high with the building used to good effect.

A piece of the original Oregon State Hospital building that’ll be spared the wrecking ball is being called the “Kirkbride U”. It’s kind of a weird term, but sort of makes sense considering the building itself is a little unusual because of it’s “J” shape. Read about it here: Plan Spares Tower on Old Hospital Site.

I’m still not sure I’d classify OSH as a Kirkbride building considering it’s oddball floorplan, but it could be one if you use a loose definition of the term. It was built in the right time period and probably followed most of the other structural ideas. It even looks like a Kirkbride minus the segmented wings. And if calling it a Kirkbride helped preserve the place, who really cares? It’s unquestionably historic and should be saved. (I know the state is destroying a lot of it, but they’re saving the most interesting part architecturally speaking.) (more…)

Journalist Steven Hart’s thoughtful piece on Greystone Park and the Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan friendship: Behind Grey Walls.

Included is a video clip on the same topic from the Strange New Jersey guys. Footage from inside the Kirkbride supposedly reveals the room Guthrie occupied during his stay.

I added a Greystone Park page to the site. I’ve been sitting on pictures of the place for a few years now. They’ll be a bit of a yawn to those familiar with other asylum web sites (most notably John Gray’s fantastic Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital). But I think it’s important that the building be represented here, if only to stop the semi-regular emails I get telling me that I missed Greystone… (more…)

The Lobotomist, an American Experience documentary about the notorious Dr Walter Freeman, will be aired Monday, January 21st on PBS. Dr Freeman was the inventor of the transorbital lobotomy and has a rather chequered reputation—as does the lobotomy which fell out of favor years ago. Stories about controversial or horrific treatment of patients are usually a bit too morbid for my taste, but they’re impossible to avoid when studying the buildings in which these treatments often took place. American Experience always makes intelligent, high-quality documentaries too, so this is worth seeing if you have the time.