#manicomio

[urbanrelics]

MANICOMIO DI RACCONIGI

This magnificent abandoned psychiatric hospital was probably my favorite spot on our recent trip to Italy. The gorgeous windows, the seemingly endless corridors, the peeling paint on the walls, the creepy looking treatment rooms... They all contribute to an eerie atmosphere that leave you in awe.

The main building was designed in 1789 by Filippo Castelli and was originally intended to house a charitable hospital and charitable work. Construction took place between 1825 and 1828, but soon after its completion, it was converted into a boarding school for the children of former military personnel. The boarding school, inaugurated in 1834 by King Carlo Alberto, was closed in 1868.

From 1870 onward, the building housed a psychiatric institution, housing approximately two hundred patients. It was not only an internment facility but also a center for neurosurgical studies, with an operating room and extensive medical equipment. Dr. Oscar Giacchi, director from 1880 to 1907, was convinced that mental illness was due to an imbalance between the volume of the brain and the skull. Therefore, the nature of the problem was assumed to be solely mechanical, and experimental surgeries were performed to enlarge the skull and create more space for the brain.

Over time, the institution was expanded with the addition of the Marro Pavilion, for "quiet men," the Tamburini Pavilion, for "quiet women," and the Morselli Pavilion, which housed the cells for patients classified as "dangerous." The more than 16-hectare estate also included an agricultural colony for occupational therapy, a clinical research laboratory, a pathology laboratory, a radiology laboratory, an electrotherapy laboratory, and, as already mentioned, an operating room for nervous system surgery. There were also kitchens, a bakery, a heating plant, and various other buildings, and it was completely self-sufficient . Approximately 500 people, including doctors, clerks, and nurses, worked there.

The psychiatric institution closed in 1981, after the Basaglia Act came into effect. Most of the medical equipment has since been removed, leaving behind an impressive complex of buildings that is slowly but surely being reclaimed by nature.

[maripan44]

Semi-human ribbun or whatever. 🙄🙄🙄 Still not finished. Kinda. Idk, maybe I'll leave it like that with all its flaws.

[welele]

[sinodvento]

[pigeoneyes]

Former psychiatric hospital, Italy More from this location here

[zoeinternada]

[calabria-mediterranea]

The old asylum of Girifalco, Calabria, Italy

Segregated at home or locked up in a mental hospital, in Calabria as elsewhere. In the 1900s, the families of the "crazy" had few alternatives. They had to keep them hidden, reassure the residents, escape glances and compassionate glances. Or interne them. The need for a language less inclined to barbarism had not yet arisen. There was no discussion about whether it was more correct to call them disabled, differently abled or people with disabilities. They defined them as "spastic", "handicapped", "psychologically abnormal". These terms covered a wide range of cases, from Down syndrome to mental retardation, through physical impairments and personality disorders. Some people even still mistook brain pain for demonic possession.

"I'll lock you up in Girifalco"

The village of Girifalco, starting from the second half of the 19th century, thus became an antonomasia. If Gorgonzola is synonymous with cheese and Verona evokes the love of Romeo and Juliet, "I'll lock you up in Girifalco" in Calabria meant that your head wasn't well and you risked ending up in a mental hospital. Today the stigma of mental distress remains. Those who suffer from it tend to dissemble. And his relatives surround him with a silent protective cloak.

Yet the climate around psychiatric pathologies seems to have changed in part. The credit goes to the much reviled Seventies: the decade of "We want everything" and of the insurrection against the powers of the State also imposed civil conquests and unprecedented rights: the workers' statute, divorce, termination of pregnancy. And law 180 of 1978, which then led to the closure of mental asylums.

The subverted stereotype

This town has been able to overturn the prevailing prejudices surrounding mental distress. From the beginning, in fact, the management of the mental hospital favored the coexistence of patients with the rest of the population and a therapeutic path based on open doors and ergotherapy, i.e. treatment based on collective work. It is a town that lives and has built its own identity in its relationship with madness. They also established a literary prize that chose madness as its theme.

Source: Matti da slegare: i prigionieri del silenzio a Reggio e Girifalco

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[alessandrocorsoni]

Former mental asylum