Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

Those familiar with 19th century asylums know all about the sometimes trivial or bizarre reasons people were “adjudged insane”. If you do any kind of research into asylums or the history of psychology, you invariably come across lists of weird explanations for why certain people were committed to asylums.

But I was surprised by a list on Roots Web I came across recently. The list was compiled from late 19th and early 20th century newspaper items describing people committed to the Mount Pleasant asylum in Iowa. (more…)

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…)

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been adding pages for Kirkbride buildings that no longer exist. If you go to the main buildings page and scroll down to the demolished Kirkbride list, you’ll see that some locations are now linked to pages for a particular asylum. So far I’ve added content for Columbus State Hospital (OH), Elgin State Hospital (IL), Mount Pleasant State Hospital (IA), Jackson State Hospital (MS), Nevada State Hospital (MO), and Rochester State Hospital (MN). I also put up a page for Saint Joseph State Hospital (MO) since what’s left of the building is now part of an active prison and I’m not likely to get photos of the place. (more…)

I’ve added an Independence State Hospital page where you can see my photos of the Kirkbride and learn a little about its history. The photos are from a visit to Iowa I took back in 2004. As I mentioned in the Clarinda post, the quality of the pictures leaves something to be desired. I think these are even a full step down from the Clarinda photos. (The ones from Cherokee are even worse. I don’t even want to post those, but I probably will just to be as complete as possible. Watch for them in the future…)

Independence is a nice looking Kirkbride. It’s facade isn’t as dramatic as some, but it’s still a pretty impressive sight, set back from the main road, sitting at the end of a long stretch of open lawn. Its relative simplicity in design would probably have pleased Dr. Kirkbride. (more…)

So I’ve changed the site’s look a little. It’s not an earth-shattering transformation, but I think it’s a decent improvement. If you notice anything strange, please let me know. You can comment here or send me an email.

I could go into all the details of the design changes, but I don’t want to bore anyone. I’ll just list off the most significant content updates which are: (more…)

Old time Kirkbride Buildings forum member WSH posted a few scans today of some annual reports from the “Worcester Lunatic Hospital“. Among other things, the superintendent writes about the installation of the clock in the admin tower. Also included are old photos of one of the rotundas, Hooper Hall. They’re definitely worth checking out.

I came across some images from Saint Elizabeths on this blog: Bioephemera. I’m not entirely sure they’re from inside the Kirkbride, but it’s likely they are. The patient graffiti reminds me of Egyptian hieroglyphics, but “Klee-esque wall scribblings” (as the blog author refers them) is probably a more accurate description.

These photos would have been a nice addition to the slideshow of Saint Elizabeths photos mentioned in this post.

(BTW: I searched through the archives mentioned at Bioephemera for more images from Kirkbride asylums, but didn’t find any.)

A while ago I came across some photos of Taunton State Hospital on the Library of Congress’ American Memory web site. They’re part of a collection of photos put together by the Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) to document achievements in architecture, engineering, and design in the United States. Of course I immediately searched for images of other asylums, but didn’t find much of interest in terms of Kirkbrides (except for these photos of Buffalo State Hospital). A few days ago I had a few hours to kill and discovered that there were actually lots of photos of other Kirkbride buildings in the collection. Here’s what I found: (more…)

There’s finally a page for Clarinda State Hospital. I visited the place back in 2004…

2004… the days when I absolutely, positively NEEDED a camera that fit in my pocket. The days before I knew what a tripod was for, or had ever heard of things like bracketing. What I’m trying to say that most of the pictures are a bit iffy. Still, there are plenty of other pictures on this site from the same time period, and these Clarinda shots are the best from my Iowa excursion. Looking at some of them though I just can’t help feeling disappointed. Why didn’t I step back a few feet here? Why didn’t I turn two degrees to the right there? How did my @#%*! finger get in front of the lens? (more…)

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…)