Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

Just a reminder to those of you in the Buffalo, NY area: there’ll be a public meeting about the Richardson Complex this Wednesday, April 16th. The meeting starts at 6PM and will take place at the Buffalo and Eerie County Historical Society, 25 Nottingham Court, in Buffalo. Findings, recommendations, updates and plans on stabilization and redevelopment will be presented.

If anyone reading this attends, please let me know of any surprising or especially good/bad news. Thanks. I’m hoping there’ll be some fantastic revelation about preservation and reuse of this historic building—it’s definitely one of my favorites. I won’t be surprised if it’s just a rehashing of things we’ve heard before though. Things usually turn out to be a lot less exciting than my hopes… *sigh*

There’s an article in The Buffalo News about repairs getting underway at the former Buffalo State Hospital Kirkbride. Stabilization, roof repair, electricity and added security seem to be the priorities. There’s no surprising information here if you’ve been keeping up with the story, but the photos accompanying the article are a nice surprise. They show work being done on one of the outlying brick wards—the part of the building least likely to be saved. While it doesn’t mean anything for certain, it makes me hopeful that preservation of the brick wards is at least a possibility.

Note: Some time after this post was published, The Buffalo News archived the article mentioned and it is no longer available without a membership to their web site. The article can still be read here, although the pictures aren’t included.

For those of you in the Buffalo, New York area, there’s going to be a public meeting regarding the Richardson Olmstead Complex on Wednesday, April 16th. The meeting will be at 6PM at the Buffalo and Eerie County Historical Society, 25 Nottingham Court, in Buffalo. That’s about two months away, but mark your calendars… (more…)

On the Buffalo State University web site, I found this podcast of a forum discussing the problems and possibilities of bringing life back to the Richardson Complex. The forum took place on May 5th, 2007.  Apart from the discussion of  ideas and visions for re-use, there are some tidbits of history mentioned, as well as explanations of the usual problems encountered when trying to find new uses for a Kirkbride building.

Although it looks like they’ve been around for a bit, this is news to me: the Richardson Center Corporation has a web site where you can learn about their mission to preserve the Richardson Complex and its surrounding grounds.

The most exciting thing (apart from the fact that they’re trying to save the building) is the creation of an Architecture and Visitor Center in the central part of the Kirkbride. They say its creation is already underway, but I don’t know if that means they’ve actually started moving in yet. Regardless, it seems likely that in the near future it’ll be possible for people to go inside the building. So that’s good news.