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Corrupting the Asylum: The Diminishing Role of the Architect in the Design of Curative Environments for Mental Illness in New Zealand

In the development of the nineteenth-century asylum, architecture was thought capable of performing a curative role in the treatment of mental illness. Between 1878 and 1949, both the curative potential of New Zealand’s mental hospitals and the influence of the architect in the design of this typology diminished. Architects were increasingly marginalised within an under-resourced design process that obstructed them from engaging with their Mental Hospitals Department client, giving rise to misunderstanding, animosity, and, ultimately, the usurpation of their professional role. In addition, a quantitative decline in British scholarship addressing asylum design at the turn of the twentieth century further isolated New Zealand’s architects from relevant medical literature. This contributed to the complex interplay of factors that compromised the therapeutic efficacy of psychiatric institutions.