Architecture
"There is no such thing as a just and proper curative or ameliorating treatment of the insane in cheaply constructed and cheaply managed institutions."
-Luther V. Bell, 1845
"There is no such thing as a just and proper curative or ameliorating treatment of the insane in cheaply constructed and cheaply managed institutions."
-Luther V. Bell, 1845
Moral therapists believed that the physical asylum was the keystone for moral treatment. Without a properly built institution the care of the insane would be insufficient to actually cure any mental disorder. Order, safety, and cleanliness created a comfortable, homelike environment where the mind could be put at ease and therefore focus on regaining its reason.
According to the most prominent American superintendents:
The objects to be accomplished by architectural arrangement are, the entire separation of the sexes, their classification, so that persons with one form, and in one state of disease, may not interfere with the comfort or recovery of others; and lastly, the easy and thorough inspection of the whole house by the medical and other officers.
These guidelines referred more to the final goals of architecture rather than the form of construction which led to a degree of variation in asylum planning during the first half of the nineteenth century. Such variations can be seen in the images in the slideshow below. The Sheppard Asylum, designed by the architect Calvert Vaux, follows an L-shaped plan with the wards extending along both wings. The presence of wards, with their own dining rooms, reading rooms, and bathrooms allows for the classification of patients and the removal of the most excitable patients to a "noisy ward" located at the end of the vertically oriented wing. This construction method met all of the requirements of moral construction by providing practical, classified space although it looks very different from any other image in the slideshow.
According to the most prominent American superintendents:
The objects to be accomplished by architectural arrangement are, the entire separation of the sexes, their classification, so that persons with one form, and in one state of disease, may not interfere with the comfort or recovery of others; and lastly, the easy and thorough inspection of the whole house by the medical and other officers.
These guidelines referred more to the final goals of architecture rather than the form of construction which led to a degree of variation in asylum planning during the first half of the nineteenth century. Such variations can be seen in the images in the slideshow below. The Sheppard Asylum, designed by the architect Calvert Vaux, follows an L-shaped plan with the wards extending along both wings. The presence of wards, with their own dining rooms, reading rooms, and bathrooms allows for the classification of patients and the removal of the most excitable patients to a "noisy ward" located at the end of the vertically oriented wing. This construction method met all of the requirements of moral construction by providing practical, classified space although it looks very different from any other image in the slideshow.
The Kirkbride Plan
In 1854 Thomas Story Kirkbride, superintendent of the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane, wrote On the Construction, Organization, and General Management of Hospitals for the Insane which consolidated all the information on construction and landscaping techniques into one guide for superintendents to follow as they continued to build asylums. From this point on the majority of asylums were built following "The Kirkbride Plan." All Kirkbride buildings followed the same rules of earlier asylums such as the separation of men and women, the centrality of an office building, and disease specific wards. The primary difference was that they were all built following a linear plan which stressed a continuous progression of wards under one roof. The image below comes from this guide and shows the plan of the cellar and first story of a linear asylum. Additional buildings were not forbidden on the grounds but it was important to house all of the patients in the main building to prevent neglect. |
Throughout the era of moral treatment, superintendents had a near obsession with the technical aspects of asylum construction. Their treatises on moral therapy include extensive plans for heating and ventilating the building in an attempt to provide comfort for their patients. Detailed instructions for these systems abound in their writings further indicating the widespread belief that a properly constructed asylum afforded patients with the best chances of recovery. Squalid conditions, like those of the eighteenth century, prevented the mind from focusing on treatment and made patient abuse almost inevitable. Proper surroundings could calm and refine the insane thus completing the utopian ideal of moral treatment.