Demolition Through Ignorance
A common term amongst those of us who explore is “demolition through neglect”- a concept which refers to the destruction of buildings through time as nature reclaims what once belonged to the earth. However, today I photographed the purposeful demolition of the first publicly funded insane asylum in the nation. Like I said in the caption of “To Be Demolished”, it was like seeing an old friend having been crippled. As I walked the fence line of the construction site, I stared in awe at the beauty that this building still held even in its most vulnerable state with its windows ripped out and its insides gutted. Demolition through our own ignorance and need to “advance”- but is it an advance to wipe out history only to repeat it, if slightly modified?
PolarityPhoto
Who is to say it is slightly modified. These buildings had something that our modern facilities couldn’t ever dream of, character. That beautiful building will not be replaced by another of equal awe inspiring stature and craftsmanship. It will be an enormous X a modern atrocity, sleek, generic and plain. It will serve one set of purposes, and turn a blind eye to another set, culture, craftsmanship, and history.
Rest in Peace Bedframe State.
You shall be missed.
Katherine Ande...
On paper the new facility looks very much like the original Kirkbride. But how could you ever match what Ward Delano created when he erected the clock tower that can be seen from almost every vantage point in the city of Worcester? How can the construction workers come in with their machines and watch the buildings tumble without ever knowing or understanding what those walls held? Generations to come will never know what those walls held, only what we photograph and what we write.
Rest in peace indeed. Thank God for us or WSH would be dead.
Anthony Mancuso
We have exactly the ssame problems here. Beautiful, beautiful old historic buildings full of old world charm and fascinating architecture moved to rubble only to be replaced by modern bland high rise. And where an old building is heratige listed or spared, they simply build around it or add on to it a sparkling new tower! What is the point, the beauty of it is ruined.
Katherine Ande...
I couldn’t agree more. Though places like WSH were places of intense horror, they were also marks of history in our country. Sigmund Freud’s 1909 visit to the United States where he visted WSH. Dorothea Dix advocating for the expansion of WSH to accomodate the growing number of insane in the commonwealth. We’re not just destroying a building. We’re destroying ourselves.