Insane Asylum 2

Initially the Insane Asylum was displaced in the Chartreuse of Collegno. In 1856 this and all of its grounds were surrendered to the Regio Manicomio. In 1854 a cholera epidemy made numerous victims. In the following decades the number of the ills grown up, and with it the greatness and the complexity of the structures. In the years '40 of the new century, the Insane Asylum of Collegno was composed from twenty tents, including the Criminal Pavilion, to that time surrounded by a tall wall (see old photo).

Under the long porticos, a small railway called Decauville was connecting among them the principal pavilions.

From the years '80 begins the de-instituionalization of the Insane Asylum, that is unified to the hospital. The departments were turned into community, the in-patients became guests. The spaces of the ex Psychiatric Hospital come partly reverts to entertain services, partly closed, partly abandoned (as the Criminal Pavilion shown in the reportage, after having demolished its wall). Currently the structure entertains still around 450 ex patients.