PreservationWorks

PreservationWorks (f. 2015) is a national advocacy organization committed to the preservation and adaptive reuse of the remaining “Kirkbride Plan” psychiatric hospitals, built across North America and Australia during the second half of the 19^th century according to the principles of Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride. Embodying Enlightenment beliefs in the therapeutic powers of architecture, beauty, nature, science, and respectful patient care, Kirkbride Plan hospitals (or “Kirkbrides,” as they are collectively known) were conceived as self-sustaining havens for treating mental illness. The Kirkbride Plan generated elegant and increasingly voluminous structures that embraced local site conditions, providing patients with fresh air, ample sunlight, and expansive vistas of bucolic, landscaped grounds designed by the likes of Olmsted & Vaux (Buffalo, Poughkeepsie – both National Historic Landmarks), and A. J. Downing (Trenton). Indeed, the rapid spread of state-run psychiatric hospitals across the country expanded the influence of landscape architecture in the American cultural imagination. Dr. Kirkbride’s Plan called for farms to provide food and opportunities for occupational therapy, alongside greenhouses, workshops, and other innovative infrastructures and amenities. Despite their early promise, the psychiatric hospitals promoted by Dr. Kirkbride and Dorothea Dix were quickly overcrowded and underfunded — a failure that haunts us today (Places Journal, 2024). 

Formed in the wake of the highly contested and unnecessary demolition of Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital, in Morris Plains, NJ, PreservationWorks inherited the 501c3 charter of the local advocacy group, Preserve Greystone. Steeped in that experience, our mission is to share knowledge and connect resources to support local preservation efforts at Kirkbride sites, and to memorialize those who lived and worked in the hospitals by offering comprehensive photographic tours, public events, and interactive research media on our website, including the Kirkbride Navigator. Our impassioned members include explorer-preservationists who embrace the complex histories of Kirkbride Plan hospitals, mindful of their national and global significance and their capacity, as three-dimensional historical documents, to inform ongoing efforts to provide better physical and social infrastructures for mental health care. Recent successful adaptations of Kirkbride Plan buildings and sites demonstrate their revitalization is both commonsense and achievable.