Social Welfare Institutions

Abstract

Abstract The rise of industrialization was accompanied by a new institutional management regime for the sick, criminal, and unproductive. From the late eighteenth century onwards, an increasingly diverse array of social welfare institutions were established to confine, treat, and relocate those deemed vulnerable or dangerous to civic society. Drawing from European and North American case studies, this chapter outlines the proliferation of monumental architectural spaces explicitly dedicated to the segregation, classification, treatment, and punishment of their occupants. The homogenized block, ward, and courtyard layouts of general infirmaries, urban prisons, and state penitentiaries are contrasted with more specialized and domestic-style forms developed for lunatic asylums, maternity hospitals, and health sanatoriums. By situating this built heritage within broader philosophical debates over nature and purpose of ‘confinement’, this chapter illustrates the architectural legacy of institutional welfare during the industrial era.

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