Vienna Narrenturm

1. Description:

The image of the Narrenturm in Vienna is of a 5 level, circular building constructed from stone masonry that utilizes a panopticon type of design. The façade of the building would leave the impression that it is solid all the way through, but rather it is a more of a ring, or donut, with a rectangular building placed in the middle to connect one side of the building to the other, without the need to walk the perimeter. Each level contains 28 tall and narrow, symmetrically spaced windows that are visible from the outside. However, the first level only has 27, as an entry is present where one of the windows might otherwise be. The placement creates an appearance of slits down the building as they are each in the same position, one on top of the other. At the top of the building, the roof vaults, and connects with the parallel, inner wall of this ring. In the middle the earlier mentioned rectangular building, or bridge divides courtyard that is created by using ring-shaped building.

2. Summary:

At the time of the Enlightenment, Europe had a new problem. Across the continent, prisons presented unsanitary, caliginous, and barbarous living conditions. John Howard, a once high sheriff, who managed a county jail, took to his expertise in reforming prisons by traveling throughout Europe to document the conditions. Followed by an account of the Principal Lazarettos in Europe, Howard documented Europe’s widespread unsanitary, caliginous, and barbarous prison conditions in his 1777 publication of, “State of Prisons in England and Wales.” The publication included enhanced models of prisons elsewhere, and the plans and layouts of such institutions.

Of the more positive examples included in his works, was Rome’s Silentium of San Michele, and Belgium’s Ackerghem in Ghent. Both demonstrated use of solitary cells, that would, “separate the young from the old, and force them both, in solitude, with labour, and low diet, to make experiment how far their natural strength of mind can support them under guilt and shame and poverty."

In Austria, Maria Teresa, house of Habsburg, sponsored reforming Ackerghem as part of her program. Following a radial design like most of the incarceration buildings of the time, the structure featured 4 tows of cell blocks. In Vienna, the 1784 Narrenturm psychiatric asylum had space for two beds and a corner sink within each cell. Each set in a radial layout planned around a chapel at the center of the circular court.

3. Research:

The Narrenturm, or Fools Tower is the first institution of its kind. Prior to the construction the mentally insane, or otherwise psychologically disturbed or disabled were institutionalized the same way as other criminals without mental disabilities. The push to separate the demographics was the start of a new path of research into psychological and mental illness. Even more at the time, it was recognition that there was the need to have a different institution for such conditions, and that traditional measures were not sufficient. In a greater picture, it was the first time that someone who might have a mental disorder and act out or carry out unlawful actions as a direct result of this might be seen for more than their crimes. One of the goals of such facility was to protect the patients from what would have been a general population of prisoners at full mental capacity, as well as from themselves in the case of self-harm.

Michael Viszánik is recognized as the first psychiatrist to be employed in the Narrenturm. Describing the conditions in 1845, each cell was 2.7m X 3.5m X 3.2m (height, length, width). Cell floors had a slope towards the door making it easier to remove liquids. The use of strait jackets, belts, and foot/leg cuffs were used as restraints. Heating was not implemented until 1827. Roughly 40% of patients suffered from some form of paranoia. (Behtlem)

Despite what would now be consider cruel and unusual treatments, such as electro therapy by means of lightning rods on top of the building. Patients could draw, paint, and sometimes wander among a garden area. This was vastly different from the treatment that would have been given in a more traditional prison type of institution. Today the building is home to the Federal Pathological Anatomical Museum which houses many artifacts from previously unknown pathogens.

4. Contemporary Culture:

Contemporary architecture can better utilize a ring or donut design due to more industrious materials that allow for less framework, and additional sources of natural light, and more recently environment positive green spaces. One great example of this would be the newer Apple Campus; utilizing high use of glass, symmetry, and negative space to not only enhance the feel and size of the structure itself, but create a well landscaped area, that does not distract from the building on the exterior, and is also more protected from wind than it might be if it were not shielded from the building on all sides.

Locally, we have an earlier but still relatively recent attempt at this type of design in Los Angeles. The Capital Records building is a good example where the concept is not yet perfected. The building gains floorspace due to the height, as a series of stacked records, taking less space than it might if the building were shorter and greater in circumference. Not only does this eliminate the immediate cost due to a smaller footprint, but had it been designed a little differently, and made more use of exoskeleton, it could have it also could allowed a similar amount of light when compared to something such as the Apple Campus where there is less height and greater circumference. Had the Capitol Records building featured a more open floor plan, light could have been able to pass into, or through the building at nearly all points of the day due to the circular shape and reasonably short diameter. The height would have also been to the benefit when considering shadow from neighboring buildings.

Both buildings demonstrate the evolution of this design at different stages. One other example falls into the theater realm. Considering the Globe Theater, the core design is very similar, but essentially removes the inner wall to create an inverted panopticon effect. Rather than the need to see what is in the surrounding structure of the central area, the need is to see the center performing area from all surrounding views. This acoustically could also have benefits depending on how the room is filled.

Works Cited

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Hess, Alan. “The Record Company Headquarters That Revived 1950s Hollywood with Iconic Architecture.” ArchDaily, ArchDaily, 28 Jan. 2017, www.archdaily.com/804265/the-record-company-headquarters-that-revived-1950s-hollywood-with-iconic-architecture.

“History.” History | The Old Globe, www.theoldglobe.org/about-the-globe/history/.

“Maria Theresa.” Biography.com, A&E Networks Television, 16 June 2020, www.biography.com/activist/maria-theresa.

Regal, Wolfgan, and Nanut Nanut. “The Narrenturm — Unique in Both Medical and Architectural Terms.” Vienna A Doctor’s Guide, 2007, pp. 164–173., doi:10.1007/978-3-211-48952-9_15.

Steadman, Philip. “Architectural Doughnuts: Circular-Plan Buildings, with and without Courtyards.” Nexus Network Journal, vol. 17, no. 3, 2015, pp. 759–783., doi:10.1007/s00004-015-0270-8.

Ugc. “The Narrenturm.” Atlas Obscura, Atlas Obscura, 24 Apr. 2012, www.atlasobscura.com/places/narrenturm.

“Vienna Asylum - Old Facilities.” Bethlem Museum of the Mind, museumofthemind.org.uk/projects/european-journeys/asylums/vienna-asylum-old-facilities.

“Wien - Narrenturm.” Die Welt Der Habsburger, www.habsburger.net/de/schauplaetze/wien-narrenturm.

Winkler, Anita. “The Commitment of Emperor Joseph II to the 'Care of the Insane'.” Die Welt Der Habsburger, www.habsburger.net/en/chapter/commitment-emperor-joseph-ii-care-insane.