Asylum : inside the closed world of state mental hospitals
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Copy number Shelfmark Shelf mark R017937 Ned. Fotomuseum USA MON PAYNE.C 2009
TitleAsylum : inside the closed world of state mental hospitals
Author
Photographer
Iconographic keywords
Place of publicationCambridge, Mass.
PublisherMIT Press
Year of publication2009
Pagination209 p.
IllustrationsZwart-Wit en kleur
Dimensions27 x 31 cm
MaterialMonografie
Document TypeBook
ISBN97802620134990262013495
Bibliographic NotesIncludes bibliographical references
Geographical keywordVerenigde Staten
Abstract
CONTENTS:
Asylum / Oliver Sacks --
The state mental hospitals / Christopher Payne --
The photographs --
Afterword
*
We cite from the COVER:
For more than half the nation's history, vast mental hospitals were a prominent feature of the American landscape. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half-million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendent Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas (some designed by the likes of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux). Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings — and the patients who lived in them — neglected and abandoned."
"Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors — chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home."
"Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who worked at a state mental hospital in the Bronx for twenty-five years). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, "where one could be both mad and safe."
*
Asylum / Oliver Sacks --
The state mental hospitals / Christopher Payne --
The photographs --
Afterword
*
We cite from the COVER:
For more than half the nation's history, vast mental hospitals were a prominent feature of the American landscape. From the mid-nineteenth century to the early twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout the United States; by 1948, they housed more than a half-million patients. The blueprint for these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendent Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas (some designed by the likes of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux). Kirkbride and others believed that well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of fresh air, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mental illness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction of psychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patient populations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massive buildings — and the patients who lived in them — neglected and abandoned."
"Architect and photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of state mental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Through his lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominent architects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors — chairs stacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly colored toothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the trip home."
"Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by Oliver Sacks (who worked at a state mental hospital in the Bronx for twenty-five years). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives once lived in these places, "where one could be both mad and safe."
*
| Copy number | R017937 |
| Institution name | |
| Shelf mark | USA MON PAYNE.C 2009 |