The 80-year-old blueprints on display in the former Athens Lunatic Asylum depict renovations for the building they hang in - and for many of the structures at The Ridges, no updated plans exist.
A new exhibit at the Kennedy Museum of Art, The Ridges: Remodeled and Restored, features 18 blueprints on loan from Ohio University Facilities Planning and Space Management's archive of more than 5,000 drawings. The blueprints will be on display through Aug. 15 in the museum, the asylum's former administration building.
It captures the history of building
of architecture of the process said Petra Kralickova, curator of the exhibit.
No new blueprints are on display, as plans to renovate still-unused buildings at The Ridges have stalled because of a lack of both funding and ideas.
We are happy to renovate The Ridges' buildings if there are projects that are worthwhile and have merit
said Richard Planisek, interim director of Facilities Planning and Space Management. These old buildings (are) beautiful and grand
but often it's finding the right project that has the right funding to make something grow.
OU still maintains the land, including at least 20 acres of natural wildlife preserve, as well as the unused buildings.
Some of the buildings are in much better condition than other buildings
Planisek said. We're putting our maintenance dollars into the buildings we would say have the most potential for future renovation.
Recalling history
Though plans for the mental hospital's unused structures such as the tuberculosis ward remain unclear, their storied history is brought to the forefront with The Ridges: Remodeled and Restored.
The purpose of us exhibiting this is calling attention to the draftsmen and sort of what's in these and how they are executed
and also give you a sense of the history of the buildings and what's going on here as well
said Beth Tragert, administrative associate at the Kennedy Museum.
Formerly a regional psychiatric hospital on a hill across from the Hocking River, the 670-acre property now known as The Ridges houses various Ohio University offices including Facilities Planning, the Konneker Research Laboratories and Mail Services.
When the Athens Lunatic Asylum was first constructed in 1868, Cleveland architect Levi Scofield wanted the initial building to be attractive in order to deter the stigma of mental health patients, according to documents from the Mahn Center for Archives and Special Collections at Alden Library.
The original design of Lin Hall, now the Kennedy Museum, adhered to the Kirkbride Plan, a mental asylum plan consisting of a large administration building with two wings, one each for male and female patients. By the turn of the century, renovators switched to a cottage plan, choosing instead to isolate patients by mental illness. Blueprints for at least one of these buildings, the Tuberculosis Cottage, will be part of the Kennedy's exhibit.
Renovations were done between 1923 and 1951
they are by no means recent - (but) I was interested in the way it's drawn. It's drawn by hand
it's drawn by pencil
it's drawn by pen ... It is a hand-crafted document
