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M-Explorer Forum:Admin, Forum:Mod, bureaucrat, checkuser, sysop
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Wiki Edit 7732
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| 5:58:49 PM - Mon, Sep 19th 2011 |
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I've been watching the various debates that have been going over which hospital is or isn't a Kirkbride. We came up with some really descriptive sub-descriptions and cool new descriptions over the asylum building plans. Plus, I can see that the debate may never end and that's fine.
But I wanted to put forward an idea or a school of thought. Basically, for a long time now people both on this site and beyond have thought on strict terms. This building must be a Kirkbride based on how it's laid out or this hospital must be a corridor, cottage plan, etc. Plus, because some places have been known as Kirkbrides for so long that it's becoming hard to think of them as any other way. Yet, back in the day, sure you had Dr. Kirkbride telling everyone in America how to build their asylums even when others were trying to come up with something better then his plan. But, you also had people who looked at his plan and said "I like most of it" but I want to do this differently, that differently, and so on. On top of that there was a period of time between Dr. Kirkbride and when the true cottage plan took full hold over America. During that time, people were experimenting. Coming up with new ideas.
This changing, strictness, and rebellion mirrors the architecture debate too. But the architectural scholars, unlike us, don't view a building's architecture along strictly so and so terms. They are willing to look at a building and say "Predominantly it's Greek Revival, but it also has elements that mirror the Georgian and Gothic periods too."
So my suggestion/school of thought is to discard strict adherence to these plans. We can say that so and so asylum is predominantly Kirkbride, but also is transitional. Another way would be, this cottage plan has some elements which are simular to the Kirkbride plan and so on. So instead of thinking of a place as strictly one thing, we look at it and say it's predominantly something and then allow for the other elements to be noted too.
I think if we can do this and also get others outside of this forum to see it that way, then things would become easier and more descriptive. Less strict and formal. The people who were designing these asylums weren't so strict so why should we be strict then?
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Forum Regular
Wiki Edit 133
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| 1:20:48 PM - Tue, Sep 20th 2011 |
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Just to add my two sense, I am not someone who cares about the label of a place. The history is important to me, but the impact in had on people it was draws me to the history, not how we are defining it after the fact. I will leave the debate to others as it is not my strong point nor something I fully understand most of the time.
I think there is an over stated love of the Kirkbrides, that I don't fully get. I understand their importance and love them for the history they represent, but I am not sure i fully explained my point before now. To steal from Shakespeare (I think) "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet" and whether or not a building is 100% Kirkbride or not matter little to me, the place and it's history is what is important to me. I think if we forget the past and how we used to do things, we fail to move forward and improve things in the now.
The one thing I will say about the Kirkbrides and some of the older facilities, they just don't built anything like that anymore. There isn't the character or longevity in the buildings you see today. In the past we built things to last and it is a shame to see so many old buildings disappear.
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M-Explorer Forum:Admin, Forum:Mod, bureaucrat, checkuser, sysop
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Forum Veteran
Wiki Edit 7732
Threads 133
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| 1:57:10 PM - Tue, Sep 20th 2011 |
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To go off what Evilavatar said and also further explain what I meant take this example:
A man walks up to a building and says it looks like it was done in the Greek style.
The problem with what he said is what style specifically? Was style specifically: classical Greek, Greek Revival, Neo Greek, a hybrid of two other styles, etc?
People are stuck on Kirkbrides. So and so is a Kirkbride and that's that! <slams fist on table>
Everyone has been guilty of it. (Including me) However, as we look deeper into them and other hospitals that weren't Kirkbrides, we're seeing that they aren't all the same. That there were times when the Kirkbrides were changed, lengthened, fixed. Plus, we're seeing that some buildings were barely Kirkbrides from the beginning and are almost their own style. We know from history that at the time asylum designers weren't always calling their places Kirkbrides because they were not wanted to hold fully to Dr. Kirkbride's ideals.
So we need to break the pattern. If a building is clearly a Kirkbride, then we should call it so. Also, if a building is a modified Kirkbride, then we should call it so. (Like we did with the modern kirkbride designation.) However, if a building barely holds true to the Kirkbride model then we cannot fully say it is a Kirkbride. We can say it is influenced by previous Kirkbrides, but we cannot say it fully is one.
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Forum Regular
Wiki Edit 1
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| 2:04:36 PM - Tue, Sep 20th 2011 |
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I agree with all the above points. Heck I was looking back over the Clarinda thread and was thinking we were sounding like those old stereotypical "Star Trek Nerds" picking apart some minor flaw from one episode!
M-Explorer's point is a good one, if actual architecture people don't take it to this level, then why should we? As it has been stated there will be no love lost for these buildings regardless of their technical classification.
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Forum Regular
Wiki Edit 2198
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| 11:43:58 PM - Tue, Sep 20th 2011 |
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Your second post made things a lot more clear to me and I agree fully.
Truly every hospital was unique to the demands of the state, those placed in charge of establishing it, the architect, contractor, the topography, material available, and countless other things. I know besides Trenton I really cant think of too many other hospitals hospital you could say were built exactly on the kirkbride plan.
And Avatar, whenever I think of how amazing old buildings are and think about how many are just rotting away it makes me cry a little inside. They were truly built for permanence. A friend of mine commented on the old abandoned Philly powerplants, which despite their massive immovable concrete construction are beautiful in their neoclassical design, that when they built them it was as though they said "This is how we do electricity, and we are going to be here forever". Its the same thing with kirkbrides and many old factories. People built things to last as though they would be there forever. Just think of how many old buildings you have seen some long closed business name carved into them?
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Thomasp94 Forum:Admin, Forum:Mod, bureaucrat, checkuser, sysop
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Wiki Edit 2658
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| 3:03:02 PM - Wed, Sep 21st 2011 |
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I agree with everything that has been said here thus far. In fact I don't really have anything to add that hasn't already been said.
I really like the way the classification of Clarinda was done by M, calling it a Transitional Kirkbride Plan.
I guess all that is really left is to work on categorizing the hospitals in the wiki to reflect these new ideas and changes.
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