Kirkbride Buildings - Historic Insane Asylum Architecture

A reader recently pointed me to an article about a new proposal for reuse of the Fergus Falls Kirkbride building in Minnesota. Apparently there’s a plan in the works to turn it into a college for Chinese language immersion and business studies. It’s a timely idea and things are moving forward, but the article does mention if an agreement isn’t finalized within a year, the building may still be destroyed.

It’s strange to think Chinese capital could help Minnesota preserve an historic structure. It makes sense though, and it doesn’t take a psychic to predict such investments from China will become more common as the 21st-century progresses. If this proposal goes through, they’re sure to benefit, as will Minnesota. I hope it works out.

In case you didn’t notice, I added a little random selection of photos from my Kirkbride set on Flickr. It’s toward the bottom of the sidebar to the right of the main content. Scroll down a little and you’ll see it. Click on one of the thumbnails to view a photo full-size. You can also click on the “My Kirkbride Set” link to view the set’s home page. (more…)

Not content with merely eradicating the historic Old Main building at the former Northampton State Hospital, MassDevelopment has changed the name of the development property from Village at Hospital Hill to Village Hill Northampton. According to their press release, the name was changed “to mark the birth of a new community and a new use for the former hospital grounds.” As Fred Contrada reports in a recent article on stigma, marketing, and “wiping out history”, their reason is a little less lofty than that…

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.

According to this article in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Worcester State Hospital came “this close” to being featured in an upcoming Martin Scorsese film. Unfortunately, scheduled demolition of buildings at WSH prevented that from happening. Too bad. It would have been nice to see the Worcester Kirkbride featured in a film. (more…)

As a web designer, I recently put together blogs for a few companies. That experience plus some recent Kirkbride-related news inspired me to try out a blog on this site. Ideally it will keep the site more current (I haven’t made a significant update in well over a year now) while also being a place for you to find news about Kirkbride buildings and other bits of information that don’t really fit in anywhere else. I’m hoping it’ll work into something worthwhile and won’t go the way of the forum. (Remember that?)

It will also help me get the ball rolling on a long overdue site update and redesign. I’ve got pictures of buildings not listed on the site, and new pictures of some of the ones that are. There will probably be a few other little features to add and maybe I’ll finally put up more chapters of Dr. Kirkbride’s book.

Anyway, feel free to comment and/or send me Kirkbride-related information you think should be posted here. Thanks.