Gli ospedali psichiatrici: luoghi eterotopici tra storia e memoria della follia

With the birth of psychiatry as an autonomous discipline in the nineteenth century, the planning and construction of psychiatric hospitals as an exclusive place to treat mental illness began in Europe. In Italy, the history of psychiatric hospitals is strongly connected with the process of state unification. The network of asylum complexes is consolidated thanks to two laws: one of 1865 which assigns to the provinces the obligation to maintain “poor idiots”, and the Giolitti law of 1904 which standardizes the legal-administrative structure of psychiatric hospitals by subordinating care to custody. From an architectural point of view, a prominent role is assigned to the alienists in providing indications for the construction of asylums, from their isolated position to internal hierarchies and distinctions (sex, curability, social position). From an urbanistic point of view, psychiatric hospitals are located in extra-urban areas and due to the complexity of their functions they are organized as actual other-cities. With the law 180 of 1978, the disposal of the mental hospital network begins, posing a series of questions concerning the destination of a huge public heritage, subject to recovery and redevelopment projects but in many cases lying in a state of abandonment.