Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals [Hardcover]

Christopher Payne (Author), Oliver Sacks (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 4, 2009 | ISBN-10: 0262013495 | ISBN-13: 978-0262013499 | Edition: 1

Powerful photographs of the grand exteriors and crumbling interiors of America's abandoned state mental hospitals.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals contains sadly beautiful photographs by Christopher Payne and a masterful essay by Oliver Sacks that reminds us that state hospitals were not always places of neglect and abuse but also of true asylum--of refuge from the stresses of life. The book presents us with a world of abandoned buildings, forgotten ashes, and derailed futures. It packs a powerful punch."--Elyn R. Saks, author of The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness, and Professor, USC Law School

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. 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 described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in his book Awakenings). 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 is a haunting, beautiful book of lost dreams and lost minds. It is a reminder that society's ideals deteriorate more rapidly than the structures built to facilitate them. Asylums for the insane, which started with high intentions, usually ended in horror and neglect. Oliver Sacks has written a deeply moving elegy for the lives of those who lived, and often died at these asylums and Christopher Payne has captured the soul of the asylums themselves through his extraordinary photographs. I cannot imagine forgetting this book: it has evoked sadness, awe, and shame."--Kay Redfield Jamison, Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of An Unquiet Mind

(Kay Redfield Jamison )

"The book will appeal to historians or scholars of material culture as well as to the medical personnel, photography lovers, and citizens familiar with the lore and lure of asylums."-Jane Simonsen, The Annals of Iowa

"Astoundingly beautiful work on a subject that rarely gets the attention." Aaron Britt Dwell

"Beautifully researched, exquisitely photographed and expertly composed and edited...Extraordinary." Frieze

"Christopher Payne's photographs perfectly match his subjects: they are strong, yet understated and dignified -- a fitting tribute to the talented architects who built these asylums and the troubled people they sheltered. It's impossible to look at this wonderful book without imagining the people who lived in these formidable structures, and wondering about their lives and what happened to them." Henry Horenstein , photographer

"...Asylum is of enormous value, as a record of how such places looked in their final years. More than that, and despite its dismal subject matter, it makes for a remarkable and endlessly fascinating book, one that can be recommended with enthusiasm to both the architectural historian and the general reader." Times Literary Supplement

" Asylum is a haunting, beautiful book of lost dreams and lost minds. It is a reminder that society"s ideals deteriorate more rapidly than the structures built to facilitate them. Asylums for the insane, which started with high intentions, usually ended in horror and neglect. Oliver Sacks has written a deeply moving elegy for the lives of those who lived, and often died at these asylums and Christopher Payne has captured the soul of the asylums themselves through his extraordinary photographs. I cannot imagine forgetting this book: it has evoked sadness, awe, and shame." Kay Redfield Jamison , Professor of Psychiatry, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and author of An Unquiet Mind

About the Author

Christopher Payne is a photographer and practicing architect in New York City and the author of New York's Forgotten Substations: The Power Behind the Subway. Oliver Sacks, a neurologist, is the author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings, Musicophilia, and other books.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 209 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press; 1 edition (September 4, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262013495
• ISBN-13: 978-0262013499
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 12 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #49,538 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Architectural
  • #51 in Books > Arts & Photography > Photography > Photo Essays

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 34 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Moody Glimpse of Old Asylums, September 30, 2009

By 

Paul Kronenberg (Brooklyn, New York United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals (Hardcover)

I'd been looking forward to Christopher Payne's new book, as I've long had a copy of his book on the forgotten subway power substations.

His new book "Asylum" is even richer than the previous book, as it captures the mood of many of these abandoned mental hospitals. I especially like the interior shots of hallways, treatment areas and especially the behind the scenes shots of boiler rooms,work shops and storage areas.

The exterior shots of many of the hospitals built before 1900 give a glimpse of a whole other approach to the treatment of people in trouble. Many of the buildings look more like resorts and reflect a model of the hospital as a positive place to get away from the pressures of life.

Payne was blessed with access to many of these unused buildings and is further blessed with an eye that sees much and captures it on photos.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Moving Homage to State Hospitals, December 15, 2009

By 

litaddiction (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals (Hardcover)

I came to "Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals" having interpreted "closed" figuratively (i.e. private; inaccessible to the general public). But Christopher Payne intends the word literally here, in this photographic tour of state psychiatric hospitals that have ceased operation and fallen into ruin.

In an introductory essay, neurologist Oliver Sacks discusses asylums as the self-supporting, castle-like sanctuaries they began as in the late 1800s, rather than the wretched places of confinement most grew to be by the mid-1900s. Photographer Christopher Payne laments similarly in his essay: "Sadly, few Americans realize that these institutions were once monuments to civic pride, built with noble intentions by leading architects and physicians who envisioned the asylums as places of refuge, therapy, and healing."

Those essays are followed by nearly 200 full-page photographs (black and white, color) showing the decayed remains of numerous hospitals in dozens of states -- their architecture, grounds, interiors, equipment, and patients' personal effects. Payne returns in an Afterword to describe how this book came to be, and how it felt, over weeks, to watch the demolition of one state hospital that held ties to his childhood.

My only quibbles were that I was confused by frequent blank pages (as though photographs had been removed at the last minute), and I longed for an index. Otherwise, this is a lovely, albeit melancholy, book, and a moving homage to state hospitals.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and beautiful, October 6, 2009

By 

Book Collector (Savannah, GA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals (Hardcover)

This collection of photographs contains an illuminating forward by Oliver Sachs and beautiful, melancholy views of historically significant architecture that should have been preserved. There's also an interesting section at the end about the tragic destruction of Danvers State Hospital in Boston, the magnificent building that first piqued my interest in this subject. I look forward to seeing more from this photographer.