Architectural Association of Ireland - Building Material Ten

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On an Asylum - Ryan Kennihan
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At the centre of the radial arms, in both plans, is the 'Governor's House', the authoritative focus of the asylum. It contained the bedrooms, offices, boardrooms, and parlour of the director of the asylum and its symbolic and functional program is three-fold. In addition to simply housing the director, it had to maintain the image of an ideal middle-class home, an image essential to the enactment of Tuke's religious and moral family environment. The house presents the fa�ade of the proper bourgeois atmosphere within the asylum itself, encouraging the patients to enact the daily performance as reasoned members of society. The aim being, that simply engaging in this performance is a positive step towards curing madness. The house's fa�ade of social order begets an equivalent fa�ade in the patients themselves.

The elements of panopticism are also apparent in the asylum plan, with the Governor's house as its central ocular element. The windows of the parlour, office, sitting, and boardrooms, are arranged to view directly down the main corridors of the cellblocks and into the Day rooms along side it. (fig. 2) The intent is apparent in the K- type plan where access to the house element is only through an 'Inspection Lobby', yet, the windows which, were it not for the radiating arms of the cell block, would simply be exterior, are arranged directly at the terminus of the hallway and along one wall of the day room. Its ocular nature is laden with implicit intent. It functions in a similar manner to the central tower of Bentham's panopticon, yet its implementation is formally less oppressive. It observes without shouting it. Bentham's Panopticon-as-jail crushes the prisoner under the weight of constant total visibility; it is, "a cruel, ingenious cage." The ocule in Johnston and Murray's asylum is simply a house. Yet it is a house whose significance is doubled in that it represents the Governor as a person, and all of the power that his gaze holds, while symbolizing the society and social order that is continually assigning judgment to the madman as long as he remains outside the bounds of reason and social order. Unlike the pure panopticon, the patient may escape from the gaze within his own cell yet within the public realm of the asylum, in the day rooms, hallways, and airing yards, society is always there, searching for a break in the patients' mask of normality. Once again, "Madness exists only as seen."

The Elevation
Elevationally, these buildings appear not unlike other civic buildings of the time. (fig. 3) They present a fa�ade, which, although slightly austere, is similar to the 18th century classicism found at the Dublin Castle and Collins Barracks or even educational buildings such as Parliament Square at Trinity College. The asylums were careful to maintain an image of gravity required of an institution of authority while simultaneously giving an impression of civil identity worthy of their noble cause. When viewed from the country roads, the size of these buildings was visually amplified by both their placement as singular objects in the landscape, and by the relatively small window size of the cellblocks. Like at the York Retreat, there were no bars on these windows, and the prison image of the past had been replaced by the image of civic fortitude, appropriate to any important buildings of the state. Ruling-class society was looking to these buildings to be a pure manifestation of the humanitarian ideals they were promoting. They were referred to at the time as, 'the most blessed manifestation of true civilization the world can present' . The plans of these buildings were to exist as crystallized diagrams of the new moral treatment and its modes of implementation for the betterment of the lunatic poor. The elevations were vital to promoting these ideals, as ideals of a compassionate state, to the populous as a whole. To the lower class, these buildings illustrated the intent of the sympathetic state to alleviate their troubles by providing for their ill. This allowed them to participate more fully in modern society and to provide more freely for their families without the burden of the sick and aged. These buildings, in conjunction with the new state hospitals, and schools, were to provide a sense that the ruling class intended to help. Alternatively, to the bourgeois reformists, these buildings congratulated them on the successes of their humanitarian revolution. The asylum was proof that their modern intellectual and cultural commonwealth was truly enlightened. Their ideals were ushering in a new era of human civilization. But these lunatic asylums did much more for the reformists. They provided a security blanket. The proof of this survives in a simple architectural section.