Asylums are my most sought out type of place to photograph, and this became the case for me rather quickly. Ever since I started exploring and documenting abandoned places, I've always found a distinct interest in the history, and architecture of these old state psychiatric facilities, and they remain to peek my interest to this very day. I have traveled around exploring and documenting as many aspects of each abandoned asylum as I possibly could. This would mean that I would try my best to document different sections that made up the facility, such as different wards constructed for different types of patient needs, medical buildings, recreational buildings, staff dormitories, etc. Each and every section made up the facility and its functionality in its heyday. Documenting abandoned psychiatric facilities has become a mission of mine to bring to light not only the unfortunate brutal suffering of patients who once occupied each facility, but to also bring to life the care, and craft that went into the initial construction of many of these historic buildings from the 19th to the 20th century. Seeing how we have evolved in our craft in architecture for facilities built to treat those with mental illness, and disabilities is intriguing and quite sad at the same time. Once funded to build and create a colorful, detail full palace of hope, to now only build a bland lifeless structure eluting to a future of sadness, and isolation. Our views on mental illness have changed as a society, and this leaves the great question… “Are we doing it better than before?” While we do indeed take on many different moral standards avoiding mistreatment of patients, and ensuring that we are being ethical, does this mean that we are truly succeeding in taking care of our mentally sick, and disabled citizens? I personally say no. I have learned first hand, and through my own experiences photographing abandoned asylums old and new, that the structure, and layout of the buildings played a tremendous role in our intention to cure and treat mentally sick people, and mentally disabled people. Our architects hired by the states, and the government designed these psychiatric facilities with so much effort to create a safe place for mentally sick, and mentally disabled people with the goal of truly improving the lives of these suffering individuals. As asylums existed for a century, overcrowding became a tremendous problem amongst existing facilities, beginning to defeat much of the original purpose of the structures. For example, personal space for patients became non existent, and sections of the buildings would be used to house patients even if the area was not constructed for this purpose. More psychiatric facilities would be built overtime to relieve overcrowding. However, with the large increase in patient population and changes in societies views on the matter, the facilities would be built often resembling something closer to the feel of a prison rather than a facility to cure people with mental illness. By the 80’s and 90’s, psychiatric drugs came into play, being widely accepted as the best solution to help with mental illness or mental disabilities, and this ultimately led to the closure of many psychiatric hospitals across the United States with a handful closing under the deinstitutionalization movement of the 90’s. Today, we reflect on psychiatric facilities as a place of horror and sadness as this is what would last be known as the environment of an asylum. However, exploring, and photographing abandoned asylums built in the 1800’s and early 1900’s would somewhat prove differently. The high ceilings, colorful walls, pressed tin ceilings, window designs, and building layouts would resemble a much more positive idea which I am thankful to be able to witness myself as asylum structures of this era are much more uncommon nowadays. Today, a large majority of asylums from the 19th and early 20th century have been demolished, becoming a distant memory. Learning about so many of these places essentially being wiped away only heightened my desire to discover remnants of historic asylums across the United States. Some abandoned asylums have been purchased, and redeveloped by universities, and amazing new owners hoping to keep the history alive. However, many asylums of many eras still sit abandoned, continuing to rot for decades, some being full of remanates of patient and staff belongings, furniture, and equipment. Unfortunately many of these historic buildings hold a future fate of demolition which has since been the case for some places I documented myself. I find it important that we appreciate the history of asylums and push to keep many of these structures around as a symbol of craft, and a symbol of hope. And this is why I find it so important to appreciate the history of asylums, and the incredible work that went into building these immaculate facilities.