The trans-allegheny lunatic asylum, then and now

摘要

Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride (1809-1883) advocated for humane hospitals for the mentally ill, with fresh air, light, and an ethos of therapy by environment. In the 19th century, his "Kirkbride Plan" was propagated throughout the United States (see figure on next page). West Virginia's Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is a gem of the Kirkbride tradition. Designed by Richard Snowden Andrews, the asylum is still celebrated as one of North America's largest hand-cut stone buildings (figure above). When construction began in the 1850s, the asylum was to hold 250 patients; a century later, at America's apex of psychiatric hospi-talization, nearly 10 times that number crowded its rooms and gardens. When the Weston State Hospital (as the asylum was known by then) finally closed in 1994, the grounds entered Kirkbride purgatory, where few buildings have escaped cranes and bulldozers (1-3).