Kirkbride buildings: a doctor's plan, architects' hands, and a Masonic hall (US, 1848–1910)
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upLens: our readingOpen: not yet provenCode: a stated code
Year: 1848 · Places: Carolinas, Gulf Coast, Northeast, Europe
SUMMARYKirkbride buildings: a doctor's plan, architects' hands, and a Masonic hall (US, 1848–1910) [Connections: Masonic color line, asylums, castles, wight, Nov 5, 2026]
RECORDDr. Thomas Story Kirkbride set out the plan in On the Construction, Organization, and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane (1854). It is a "bat wing" layout with a "narrow, stepped, linear building footprint." The first was Trenton State Hospital, New Jersey, designed by John Notman and built in 1848. Wikipedia counts "73 known Kirkbride Plan hospitals" built between 1845 and 1910. Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan built "about 20 hospitals for the insane based on the 'Kirkbride Plan' System," including Bryce Hospital, Tuscaloosa, Alabama (1861), Greystone Park, New Jersey (1871) and Broughton, North Carolina (1883). Sloan also designed the "Masonic Hall, 700 block Chestnut St., Philadelphia - 1855, burned 1886."
PATTERNThe same architect built the asylums and the city's Masonic hall. That is a documented commission. It is not evidence that Sloan was a Mason, and he is not named as one here
CODESome readers see the shared hand in asylums and a Masonic hall as a clue. On the documents it is a professional overlap
LENS (WW9)Follow the builders. The same drafting tables drew the temple and the asylum
OPENSloan's lodge membership (needs a lodge record). Which Kirkbride hospitals had separate "colored" wards or annexes?
SOURCEWikipedia: Kirkbride Plan; Wikipedia: Samuel Sloan (architect)). ---