Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

The future of the historic Center Building in Topeka, Kansas isn’t looking so good. This last remnant of the Topeka State Hospital Kirkbride is in danger of being torn down. The Topeka Unified School District is considering the purchase of the former state hospital grounds on which the building stands. If they do buy the property, many of the abandoned buildings on the property will be demolished, and the Kirkbride admin will very likely be among ther number. While I’ve heard that the future of this structure hasn’t looked particularly hopeful even before now, I think this is the first indication of any real plans to knock it down.

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Filed under: Buildings, Demolition, In the News by Ethan
Tags: Topeka-State-Hospital

I got an email last week informing me that my list of Kirkbrides was incomplete because the asylum in Osawatomie, Kansas wasn’t included. While I’m still not 100% sure there was a Kirkbride there, I trust this person’s opinion and went looking (again) for whatever evidence I could find.

During my search I did find something promising related to the Osawatomie asylum, but the thing I found really exciting was something else entirely that I stumbled upon by happy accident. I’m sure only the most geeky of asylum architecture enthusiasts will find this interesting, so if you’re not one of those, please disregard this post. If you are an asylum architecture nerd, then read on… (more…)

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Filed under: Buildings, Pictures, Web Sites by Ethan
Tags: Buffalo-State-Hospital, elevation, pictures, plan, Topeka-State-Hospital