In 1897 John Sibbald, Commissioner in Lunacy for Scotland, stated that ‘the construction of an asylum is a more interesting subject of study for the general reader than might be supposed.’ This thesis traces the development of the public asylum in Scotland from 1781 to 1930. By placing the institution in its wider social context it provides more than a historical account, exploring how the buildings functioned as well as giving an architectural analysis based on date, plan and style. Here the architecture represents more, and provides a physical expression of successive stages of public philanthropy and legislative changes during what was arguably one of the most rapidly evolving stages of history. At a time when few medical treatments were available, public asylum buildings created truly therapeutic environments, which allowed the mentally ill to live in relative peace and security. The thesis explores how public asylums in Scotland introduced the segregation or ‘classification’ of patients into separate needs-based groups under a system known as Moral Treatment. It focuses particularly on the evolving plan forms of these institutions from the earliest radial, prison-like structures to their development into self-sustaining village-style colonies and shows how the plan reflects new attitudes to treatment. While many have disappeared, the surviving Victorian and Edwardian mega-structures lie as haunting reminders of a largely forgotten era in Scottish psychiatry. Only a few of the original buildings are still in use today as specialist units, out-patient centres, and administrative offices for Scotland’s Health Boards. Others have been redeveloped as universities or luxury housing schemes, making use of the good-quality buildings and landscaping. Whatever their current use, public asylums stand today as an outward sign of the awakening of the Scottish people to the plight of the mentally ill in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Der Name Klinik ist von dem altgriechischen Wort klíne abgeleitet, das einen Gegenstand – das Bett oder die Liege benennt. Jedoch wird mit Klinik zunächst eine Praxis bzw. eine Methode bezeichnet: die „Medizin am Krankenbett“. In dieser Arbeit wird untersucht, welche Bedeutungen, Wirkungen und Entwicklungen das Bett in und mit der Klinik entfaltete. Seine Form, Materialität und symbolischen Eigenschaften wirken auf die Klinik als Institution, als architektonisches und organisatorisches Gebilde sowie auf die Patient_innen und die Art und Weise ihrer Behandlung. Seit dem späten 18. Jh. ist das eiserne Bettgestell, belegt mit einer Person, konstitutiv für den ‚zivilisierten‘ Menschen und zieht in dieser Form in Europas Hospitäler ein. Das Krankenbett hat außerdem stützende, unterstützende und schützende Funktionen. In Gestalt der ‚Bettmaschine‘ verspricht es um 1800 humanitären Halt und Trost. Im 20. Jh. übernimmt das Dispositiv Sicherheit: Bettgitter sollen ‚wehrlose Kranke‘ vor dem Herausfallen aus dem Bett schützen. Die Abrechnung und Planung der Krankenhausbehandlung wird seit dem 19. Jh. mehr und mehr an die Einheit Bett geknüpft. Anfang des 20. Jh. wurde zudem die Idee des Fortschritts mit dem Krankenhausbett als zeitgemäßes Industrieprodukt nach Normvorgaben verbunden. Designprojekte der 1960er Jahre richteten sich besonders auf die Körper einer Nutzergruppe: der Pflegefachkräfte. Bettennot, Fachkräftemangel, der Drang nach Verkürzung der Verweildauer und daraus resultierende Rationalisierungen veränderten das Bett, und mit ihm die Abläufe im Krankenhaus und wie Patient_innen versorgt und behandelt werden. Sichtbar wird zudem, dass zwei Mobilisierungsprojekte im Widerstreit zueinander stehen: Auf der einen Seite die Bemühungen, das Krankenhausbett für die klinische Logistik beweglich zu machen und auf der anderen Seite, die im langen Prozess der Aktivierung des Verkehrsapparats Krankenhaus passivierten Patient_innen zu mobilisieren. / Although the word ‘clinic’ refers to a practice or a method of "bedside teaching", it derives from the ancient Greek word klíne, which describes an object – the bed or the couch. This research project examines the evolution of the hospital bed itself and the meanings and effects associated with its development. Its form, materiality and symbolic properties have affected the clinic as an institution and as an architectural and organizational structure, as well as the patients and the way they have been treated. In the 18th century, the hospital bed became a means to draw distinctions between wild or civilized, healthy or ill etc. Historically, the sickbed has taken on reclining, supportive and protective functions. Around 1800, in the form of a new “bed-machine”, it promised humanitarian support and consolation. In the 20th century, the apparatus of security took over, and bed rails were installed to protect ‘helpless patients’ from falling out of bed. Since the 19th century, the planning of hospital treatment, and the accounting behind it, has been linked more and more to the bed as a unit. At the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of progress transformed the hospital bed into a state-of-the-art industrial product with fixed standards. Steel tube furniture has established itself as peculiarly adaptable and as the site of medical treatment. Design projects in the 1960s focused on the bodies of one user group – the nursing staff. Hospital bed shortages, lack of nursing staff and pressure to shorten the length of stay resulted in a rationalization that changed the bed’s structure, and with it hospital procedures, and how patients are treated. Two significant and controversial mobilization projects linked to this development are efforts to make the hospital bed mobile for the sake of logistics, and, as a countermeasure, current efforts to re-mobilize patients who were made passive by the former process.