Kirkbride Plan

The Kirkbride Plan refers to a system of mental asylum design advocated by Philadelphia psychiatrist Thomas Story Kirkbride in the mid-1800s.

The establishment of state mental hospitals in the U.S. is partly due to reformer Dorothea Dix, who vividly testified to the New Jersey legislature in 1844, describing the state's treatment of people with mental illness: they were being housed in county jails, private homes and the basements of public buildings. Dix's effort led to the construction of the New Jersey State Lunatic Asylum, the first asylum built on the Kirkbride Plan.

Kirkbride developed his requirements based on a philosophy of Moral Treatment. The typical floor plan, with long rambling wings arranged "en echelon" (staggered, so each connected building still received sunlight and fresh air), was meant to promote privacy and comfort for patients. The building form itself was meant to have a curative effect, meant as "a special apparatus for the care of lunacy," and Kirkbride wrote that their grounds should be "highly improved and tastefully ornamented."

These asylums tended to become large, imposing, Victorian-era institutional buildings within extensive surrounding grounds which often included farmland. While the vast majority were located in the United States, there were also some in Canada, and a psychiatric hospital in Australia was influenced by Dr. Kirkbride's recommendations. By 1900 the notion of "building-as-cure" was largely discredited, and in the following decades these facilities became too expensive to maintain. Many Kirkbride Plan asylums still stand, abandoned, neglected, and vandalized, though several are still in use or have been renovated for uses other than mental health care. Examples include:


 * 1845 New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton, New Jersey, the first Kirkbride Plan building
 * 1848 Jacksonville State Hospital at Jacksonville, Illinois
 * 1853 Maryland Hospital for the Insane at Spring Grove, Catonsville, MD
 * 1854 State Lunatic Hospital at Taunton, Massachusetts
 * 1856 Western State Hospital (formerly Western Lunatic Assylum) Hopkinsville, Kentucky
 * 1858 Northampton State Lunatic Hospital, Northampton, Massachusetts
 * 1858 Western Michigan Asylum for the Insane, Kalamazoo, Michigan
 * 1859 Dixmont State Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
 * 1860 The Institute of the Pennsylvania Hospital (also known as the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane Department for Males) Philadelphia
 * 1861 Bryce State Mental Hospital, Tuscaloosa, Alabama (still in use)
 * 1862 Western Pennsylvania Asylum for the Insane (also known as Dixmont State Hospital) at Kilbuck, Pennsylvania (demolished in late 2005)
 * 1863 West Virginia Hospital for the Insane, Weston, West Virginia
 * 1867 Boston State Hospital for the Insane (Proposed), Boston, Massachusetts
 * 1868 Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane, Poughkeepsie, New York
 * 1872 Northern Illinois State Mental Hospital, Elgin, Illinois (later known as Elgin State Hospital, demolished in 1993)
 * 1873 Winnebago State Hospital, Oshkosh, Wisconsin (now known as Winnebago Mental Health Institute, original Kirkbride demolished in parts between 1950-1969)
 * 1874 Athens Lunatic Asylum, Athens, Ohio
 * 1874 [State Hospital for the Insane, Warren, Pennsylvania] (still in use as Warren State Hospital)
 * 1876 Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, Hanover, New Jersey
 * 1877 Worcester State Hospital, Worcester, Massachusetts
 * 1878 Danvers State Hospital, Danvers, Massachusetts
 * 1878 Eastern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, Pontiac, Michigan
 * 1885 Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane, Traverse City, Michigan
 * 1891 Sheppard Pratt Hospital, Towson, Maryland (still in use)
 * 1895 Buffalo State Hospital, Buffalo, New York (designed by H.H. Richardson)
 * 1906 Fergus Falls State Hospital, Fergus Falls, Minnesota