ForumGarden

... I find great beauty in ruined and decayed buildings & structures. This concept is fairly commonplace in the east, especially in Japan but not so in the west.

I especially love abandoned psychiatric hospitals, theatres & cinemas, amusement parks and jails. I also so love staircases ... as long as I can't see where they're leading!

Here are some images I found to illustrate what I mean.

(See Images In Future Replies)

Buffalo State Hospital, NY.



Image courtesy of Christopher Payne via NPR

Typical ward, Buffalo State Hospital, NY.



Image courtesy of Christopher Payne via NPR

Staircase ……… Mead building lobby, Yankton State Hospital, SD



Image courtesy of Christopher Payne via NPR

Patient suitcases, Bolivar State Hospital, TN



Image courtesy of Christopher Payne via NPR

Unclaimed cremation urns, Oregon State Hospital, OR



Image courtesy of Christopher Payne via NPR

What’s most peculiar about those asylums is that they, like much of policy dimorphic that begins with an idealistic vision and ends in a social malady, began with the idea of “moral treatment” wherein the ill would be removed from the city and placed in these Utopian environments, many of which were fully self-sufficient and even generated their own electricity, and put to meaningful work.

Asylums offered a life with its own special protections and limitations, a simplified and narrowed life perhaps, but within this protective structure, the freedom to be as mad as one liked and, for some patients at least, to live through their psychoses and emerge from their depths as saner and stabler people.

In general, though, patients remained in asylums for the long term. There was little preparation for return to life outside, and perhaps after years cloistered in an asylum, residents became ‘institutionalized’ to some extent, and no longer desired, or could no longer face, the outside world.” ~ Oliver Sacks

jones jones;1381682 wrote: Buffalo State Hospital, NY.



Image courtesy of Christopher Payne via NPR


This photo looks like the beginning scene of a 1940s suspense thriller!

I can recommend this documentary if you enjoy decaying mental hospitals and it's an interesting story as well.