The Well-Ordered Body: The Quest for Sanity through Nineteenth-Century Asylum Architecture

Abstract

Abstract. Nineteenth-century somatic theories of madness required specific types of treatment that focused on the body of the afflicted. This treatment stressed the primacy of caring for the body as a route to curing the mind. h a tment through environment would facilitate a transfer of the salubrious nature of a well-ordered place of treatment to the body and the mind of the lunatic. Therefore, the design of this environment became important as a method of treatment. The architect was to construct a facility ensuring the ordering, in detail, of placement, movement, and perception of the incarcerated. Also, this facility would act as a technology to facilitate the limits and types of bodily activities that would define a person as mad or sane. This article focuses on the architectural discourse of building for sanity.R6sum6. Au XIXe sikle, les thhries somatiques de la folie impliquaient des types spkifiques de traitement qui 6taient cent& sur le corps du patient. Ce traitement soulignait l'importance de s'occuper du corps afin de gukir l'espdt. Cette th6rapie qui insistait sur l'environnement du malade prbtendait faciliter le transfert de la salubrite d'un lieu de traitement bien ordonn6 au corps et ? I l'esprit de l'ali6ne. C'est pourquoi la structure architecturale de ces l i e u devint importante en tant que m6thode de traitement. L'architecte devait produire un environnement oh aurait lieu la th6rapie par la rnise en ordre minutieuse de la I place, des mouvements et de la perception du malade incarc6r6. Ce dispositif thkapeutique devait fonctionner 6galement c o m e une technologie permettant de rnieux cerner les limites et types des activitb physiques ui dbfiniraient une personne comme alien& ou c o m e saine d'esprit. Cet artic 4 e va donc Ctre centre5 sur le discours architectural r6gissant la construction d'6tablissements pour la s a t 6 mentale.

The paper technology of confinement: evolving criteria in admission forms (1850–73)

“…While a temporary institution opened on 21 January 1841, a group of commissioners monitored the construction of a new building (Bazar, 2007; Terbenche, 2010). Inspired by the model of the Worcester asylum in Massachusetts (Hudson, 2000), the commissioners thought it would have been beneficial for patients’ recovery to erect the building far from the city centre (Edginton, 1994). The new institution was thus located at an approximately one-hour walk from the core of the city.…”

“…As the first institution of its kind in the province, the Toronto asylum has received considerable attention. Historians have explored the administrative aspects related to its inception (Baehre, 1995;Brown, 1984) and its architectural plan (Court, 2000;Edginton, 1994;Hudson, 2000), while others have focused on patients' life (Reaume, 1997(Reaume, , 2006Smith, 2019) and characteristics (Mitchinson, 1987(Mitchinson, , 1988. Moreover, Wright, Moran and Gouglas (2003) have studied the population confined during the years 1861-91 and other researchers have focused on the ambitions of the medical profession in Ontario (Bazar, 2006(Bazar, , 2007Dunlop, 2006;Terbenche, 2010Terbenche, , 2011.…”

Accounting and psychiatric power in Italy: The royal insane hospital of Turin in the 19th century

“…The new RIHT, as shown in Figure 1, had a long box shape, with two parallel buildings nine metres apart; one for men and one for women, covering a total surface area of over 23,000 square metres (RCSST, 1849-52, p. 856). At the time throughout Europe and Britain considerable importance was given to the use of space in asylums for therapeutic purposes using, as in the case of the new RIHT building, large rectangular buildings with gardens, or for monitoring purposes relying upon a radial layout like the Panopticon, a form which was entirely disregarded in Turin's design 8 (Edginton, 1994(Edginton, , 1997Franklin, 2002;Scull, 2004;Hockman, 2005;Sine, 2008;Funnell et al, 2017). The new RIHT immediately attracted a large number of patients, as shown in Table 1, mainly from the area of Turin but also from throughout the Kingdom of Sardinia.…”

Core Values in Action: Therapeutic Farms for Persons with Severe Mental Illness

“…It was believed that moral treatment required moral architecture (Francis, 1977). The building, which was considered to be an instrument of treatment (Scull, 1981), was to be located in tranquil setting to allow patients to escape the chaos of everyday life (Edginton, 1994(Edginton, , 1997. The farm community was to have walks, woods, gardens and orchards (Digby, 1985).…”