For more than half the nation's history, vast mental hospitals were aprominent feature of the American landscape. From the mid-nineteenth century to theearly twentieth, over 250 institutions for the insane were built throughout theUnited States; by 1948, they housed more than a half million patients. The blueprintfor these hospitals was set by Pennsylvania hospital superintendant Thomas StoryKirkbride: a central administration building flanked symmetrically by pavilions andsurrounded by lavish grounds with pastoral vistas. Kirkbride and others believedthat well-designed buildings and grounds, a peaceful environment, a regimen of freshair, and places for work, exercise, and cultural activities would heal mentalillness. But in the second half of the twentieth century, after the introduction ofpsychotropic drugs and policy shifts toward community-based care, patientpopulations declined dramatically, leaving many of these beautiful, massivebuildings--and the patients who lived in them--neglected and abandoned. Architectand photographer Christopher Payne spent six years documenting the decay of statemental hospitals like these, visiting seventy institutions in thirty states. Throughhis lens we see splendid, palatial exteriors (some designed by such prominentarchitects as H. H. Richardson and Samuel Sloan) and crumbling interiors--chairsstacked against walls with peeling paint in a grand hallway; brightly coloredtoothbrushes still hanging on a rack; stacks of suitcases, never packed for the triphome. Accompanying Payne's striking and powerful photographs is an essay by OliverSacks (who described his own experience working at a state mental hospital in hisbook Awakenings). Sacks pays tribute to Payne's photographs and to the lives oncelived in these places, "where one could be both mad and safe."

This book is on these lists:

• January 2012 Indie Next List
• December 2011 Indie Next List
• November 2011 Indie Next List