Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals

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Christopher Payne

Essay by Oliver Sacks

The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2009, English

Nonfiction, Architecture; Nonfiction, Photography

11.75 x 10.25 inches, hardcover, 209 pages, 88 color photographs, 67 color and 68 black-and-white illustrations

ISBN: 9780262013499

Suggested Retail Price: $45.00

From the Publisher. 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 superintendant Thomas Story Kirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions and surrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. 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.

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Jessica Helfand

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With exquisite photos by Christopher Payne and a pitch-perfect essay by Oliver Sacks, this is the rare coffee table book that’s worth plunging into, start to finish. Beautifully written, photographed, sequenced, edited, and printed. Without a doubt one of my favorite books.

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