H.H. Richardson Complex

H.H. Richardson Complex is a recently-coined name for the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, a large Medina red sandstone and brick hospital that stands on the grounds of the present day Buffalo Psychiatric Center in Buffalo, New York. The official name for the complex (at least technically so) remains as the Buffalo Psychiatric Center (originally Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, and, later, known as Buffalo State Hospital). It was designat... more

H.H. Richardson Complex is a recently-coined name for the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, a large Medina red sandstone and brick hospital that stands on the grounds of the present day Buffalo Psychiatric Center in Buffalo, New York. The official name for the complex (at least technically so) remains as the Buffalo Psychiatric Center (originally Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, and, later, known as Buffalo State Hospital). It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986., The hospital buildings were designed in 1870 in the Kirkbride Plan by architect Henry Hobson Richardson with grounds by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The complex consists of a central administrative tower and five pavilions or wards progressively set back on each side, for eleven buildings total, all connected by short curved two-story corridors. Patients were segregated by sex, males on the east side, females on the west. The wards housed mental patients until the mid-1970s. The central... less