Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

As a result of the site’s 15 minutes of fame a couple weeks ago, I got a few emails about Oregon State Hospital. Each made a case for including the Oregon State Hospital “J Building” (soon to be “The Kirkbride U“) in my list of Kirkbrides. They were pretty convincing I have to say. Apparently the building was originally designed according to Kirkbride’s specifications, but when it came time to add on additional wards, real estate issues prevented the wings from being extended in the normal fashion. Instead, they were extended back at a right angle to the original building’s main axis.

After hearing the evidence from multiple sources, I’ve decided to finally consider the building a Kirkbride. I’m a little worried that adding it to the list will open the door to other variants and ugly cousins of the Kirkbride plan, but we’ll see. (Just to be clear, I don’t mean to say that OSH is ugly:) I also got a bunch of messages about other possible Kirkbride buildings not included in the list. Some people were obviously just mistaken, but a couple submitted promising candidates. I’ll keep you posted if anything interesting turns up.

What reminded me about Oregon State Hospital in particular was a couple items I recently stumbled across on the web. One of these is Oregon State Hospital during the 1960s by C.L. Brown, a former patient. The complete piece contains her memories of the hospital and a couple interviews she did with her former psychiatrist. It’s a pretty interesting read.

In addition to that, there’s also the fascinating and more unusual story of the “Library of Dust”. From the 1880s to the 1970s, the unclaimed, cremated remains of patients who died at Oregon State Hospital were placed in individual copper canisters and then stored in the basement. Over the decades, chemical reactions caused by moisture resulted in brilliant colors streaking across the canisters and “blooms” of corrosion erupting from their sides. It’s kind of nice to know that even though the cannisters were originally almost identical, each one has become an individual because of its unique reaction to the elements. Photographer David Maisel has documented this collection of “cremains” in a collection of photographs titled “Library of Dust”. You can see some of the photos and learn a bit more about the remains on Maisel’s web site, or you can purchase his book which will be released this month: Library of Dust.

On Tuesday there was a public meeting concerning efforts to preserve the Buffalo State Hospital Kirkbride. At the meeting, the Richardson Center Corporation revealed their Historic Structures Report (available for download on their documents page). The report is a beautifully comprehensive collection of history and images of the hospital buildings, and you should definitely check it out.

I haven’t digested the whole report yet, but the part I find most interesting so far is the description of the hospital’s construction, development and eventual downsizing which begins on page 62. Included are maps of the hospital campus during different time periods, as well as photos of the buildings from over the years. Especially striking is an old photo from about 1880 of the unfinished Kirkbride (page 70). (more…)

I got an email this morning breaking the sad news that Heidi Johnson passed away this week. In case you’re unaware, Ms. Johnson was a photographer and author of Angels in the Architecture, a fantastic collection of photos and history of Traverse City State Hospital. I never met or spoke with her unfortunately, but her work documenting TCSH was an influence on me and on many other asylum photographers. I’ve always had nothing but respect for her work. In addition to being just plain beautiful, I’m sure it also played a role in the preservation of Building 50.

For some other tributes and thoughts on Ms. Johnson’s passing, please see Heidi Johnson and the Angels in the Architecture and Remembering Heidi Johnson.

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…)

Source: Google Maps

I’ve been waiting for more Kirkbrides to show up in Google Maps‘ Street View feature since the Worcester Kirkbride appeared a few months ago. While putting together a separate post involving Buffalo State Hospital, I happily discovered that the Buffalo Kirkbride is now featured. If you’ve never been, take a look around.

As explained a while back in this post, it’s my goal to post pages with pictures and history of each demolished Kirkbride building that I never got a chance to visit. I’ve recently posted a few more, including Spring Grove State Hospital (Maryland), Fulton State Hospital (Missouri), Jacksonville State Hospital (Illinois), Kalamazoo State Hospital (Michigan), Winnebago State Hospital (you guessed it: Wisconsin), and Pontiac State Hospital (Michigan).

Some of the less boring facts gleaned during my research involve the asylums in Jacksonville and Fulton. At Jacksonville, in 1860 a lady named Elizabeth Packard was involuntarily committed for three years. Her husband sent her to the asylum after she began disagreeing with his religious beliefs. On her release, she separated from her husband, formed the Anti-Insane Asylum Society, and successfully petitioned the Illinois legislature to grant wives the right to a public hearing if their husbands tried to have them committed. She also wrote a few books about her asylum experience (one of which can be read online here). (more…)

LiveJournal user laurapalmer813 posted some photos of the Kirkbride building in Dayton, Ohio today. (This is the Kirkbride that’s been turned into a retirement home.) If you’re interested, check out the photos. The building looks pretty good, maybe a little boring since it’s lost some ornamentation, but still pretty good. Looks like it’ll be around for a good long while.

I have a confession to make: I still haven’t read all of Thomas Kirkbride’s book On the Construction and General Arrangement of Hospitals for the Insane. I know, it’s shameful but true. I have read a decent portion of it, but the text is just so utterly BORING. Kirkbride’s convoluted and archaic prose full of inverted sentence structures, superfluous commas, and needless repetition is bad enough, but the bulk of the content is pretty tiresome too. The lengthy discussions about fireproofing and number of “water-closets” required per ward really put me to sleep.

I somehow managed to slog through another ten chapters (51 through 60) and transcribe them for the site though. I know I said I wasn’t going to add to the transcription now that the book is available elsewhere, but I’ve changed my mind. There’s no other way I’m ever going to read the entire book, and having it available here as a resource just makes sense. (more…)

Sorry for the blatant self-promotion, but I think some of you regular readers will be interested in this. I’ve started another web site along similar lines to this one, although it doesn’t have anything to do with asylums. It’s a collection of photos and history of buildings in the northeastern United States.

www.nearchitecture.com

In studying Kirkbrides for so long, I’ve also gained appreciation for other buildings too. Even though they don’t have the same allure as the old insane asylums, other buildings can still be beautiful and intriguing. While traveling to visit Kirkbrides, I’ve come across a few other places worth taking pictures of. I wasn’t planning this new site when I took the photos though so the galleries are currently a bit uneven. But at least it’s a better starting off point than the original KirkbrideBuildings.com! (I still can’t believe I put that online. You’ve come a long way, baby…) (more…)

There’s a new pictorial history of Spring Grove State Hospital entitled… Spring Grove State Hospital. It’s was compiled by David Helsel, M.D. and Trevor Blank. (Dr. Helsel is the superintendent of Spring Grove Hospital Center.)

The book was published as part of the Images of America series. Images of America books are pretty consistently good quality resources for historical images and history.

I haven’t seen the book myself yet, but I’m told that several images of the Spring Grove Kirkbride building are included. If the images are anything like those on the hospital web site’s virtual tour of the old Kirkbride, I’m sure they’re worth seeing, especially in print.