An Interview with Lewis Nordan

Constructing curative instruments: psychiatric architecture in Norway, 1820-1920

“…, 40 Simultaneously with this proposal, Dr Hald, a member of the committee and the newly appointed director of the communal hospitals (a physician but not a psychiatrist), presented an alternative project, suggesting the colony asylum as the modem (and thus model) institution. In this asylum the symmetrical system was abandoned for the first time since the old madhouses (dollhus).…”

“…A committee planning this hospital engaged the architect Victor Nordan to assist in the work, and he chose the St Hans Asylum in Copenhagen as a prototype, 'in accordance with the committee. , 40 Simultaneously with this proposal, Dr Hald, a member of the committee and the newly appointed director of the communal hospitals (a physician but not a psychiatrist), presented an alternative project, suggesting the colony asylum as the modem (and thus model) institution. These suggestions seem to have triggered an enforced interest in the asylum project, now viewed as a project independent of the general hospital.…”

“…This led, according to the architect, to improved cleanliness, and to a new and significantly better 'tone among the inmates'. 44 Slowly, the staff became an integrated part of the curative machinery.…”