When the Government Hospital for the Insane opened in Anacostia in 1855, the asylum’s supervising physician, Charles Nichols, predicted that 50 percent of the mentally ill people treated there would make a full recovery. What made him so confident? The building. He’d designed it in accordance with the most cutting-edge theories of the day, which called for sunny, well-ventilated asylums in the countryside — the Washington Post
The "Architecture of an Asylum: St. Elizabeth's 1852-2017" is a new exhibit opening at the National Building Museum this weekend. It looks at past theories that contended that design could have a major and healing effect on mental illness. Fresh air was encouraged, as was scattering patients across a campus.
While presumably nicer than precedents: “It turns out that’s not true. You can’t fix brain chemistry with architecture.”
4 Comments
I ran across an article recently that covered much the same ground, came to much the same conclusion. I couldn't help but think that for how much we try and theorize about the good we can do through design, we tend to do more harm than good. We can't MAKE life better for most people, but we sure as hell can make it worse.
We actually can make life better for some people, at least marginally, which makes it all the more important to try. There's a mountain of evidence coming out in the fields of neurology and psychology that can attest to this. Even if someone's sad, trying to cheer them up might just be the flicker of hope that makes them try to push forward. At least the attempt to care will communicate an empathy that's essential. Architecture, done humanely does exactly that.
When architects are empowered the results are usually good. Whenever it becomes a formula (usually from politicians playing "architects") the results are not good.
re: "brain chemistry", as I understand it, isn't a awareness of the potential "Psycho-physiological responses" and understanding of "mirror neurons/embodied cognition" et al, a key aspect of the work of ANFA and others? And while I'll grant that architecture might not "cure mental illness" isn't the whole idea behind "sick buildings" or healthy / active design, that better buildings can mean more "physically healthy" people?
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