Kirkbride Plan

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Historic Print of Main Building of Elgin State Hospital, which was demolished in 1993.

The Kirkbride Plan refers to a system of mental asylum design advocated by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride in the mid-1800s.

The establishment of state mental hospitals in the U.S. is partly due to reformer Dorothea Dix, who vividly testified to the Massachusetts legislature in 1844, describing the state's treatment of people with mental illness: they were being housed in county jails, private homes and the basements of public buildings. Dix's effort led to the construction of the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, the first asylum built on the Kirkbride Plan.

Kirkbride developed his requirements based on a philosophy of Moral Treatment. The typical floor plan, with long rambling wings arranged "en echelon" (staggered, so each connected building still received sunlight and fresh air), was meant to promote privacy and comfort for patients. The building form itself was meant to have a curative effect: "a special apparatus for the care of lunacy, [whose grounds should be] highly improved and tastefully ornamented." The idea of institutionalization was thus central to Kirkbride's plan for effectively treating patients with mental illnesses.[1]

These asylums tended to become large, imposing, Victorian-era institutional buildings within extensive surrounding grounds which often included farmland. While the vast majority were located in the United States, there were also some in Canada, and a psychiatric hospital in Australia was influenced by Dr. Kirkbride's recommendations. By 1900 the notion of "building-as-cure" was largely discredited, and in the following decades these facilities became too expensive to maintain. Many Kirkbride Plan asylums still stand today. Most are abandoned, neglected, and vandalized, though several are still in use or have been renovated for uses other than mental health care.

Broughton Hospital in Morganton, NC is under renovation (as of July 2008), using the north wing for a Forensics Unit. It will use all three floors to house patients that are incapable to proceed with court. Technology is state of the art on many levels for the safety of patients, as well as staff.

Examples include:

[edit] References

  1. ^ Carla Yanni, The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2007, 55-59
  2. ^ Yanni, Architecture of Madness, 55.
  3. ^ http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/420.html Retrieved Sept. 22, 2006
  4. ^ Briska, William H. (1997). The History of Elgin Mental Health Center: Evolution of a State Hospital. Crossroads Communications. ISBN 0-916445-45-3. 
  5. ^ http://www.dpw.state.pa.us/Family/MentalHealthServ/StateMentalHospAndRest/003670893.htm
  6. ^ Broughton Hospital
  7. ^ *Worcester
  8. ^ *Danvers
  9. ^ * The Village at Grand Traverse Commons
  10. ^ Minnesota Historical Society. Fergus Falls State Hospital Papers
  11. ^ Fergus Falls Daily Journal. (September 13, 2008). State Hospital: The Early days

[edit] External links

[edit] Further reading

  • The Art of Asylum-Keeping by Nancy Tomes
  • Yanni, Carla. The Architecture of Madness: Insane Asylums in the United States, Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2007.
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