Add a review about the Museum of Dr. Gislena

This museum is rather unusual, and not everyone is going to pay a visit here: the museum is located in the oldest psychiatric hospital in Belgium, built in 1857 . Meanwhile, it is very much worth a look . Secondly, First, the museum of Dr. Gislen now represents a beautiful quiet oasis in a charming place among the greenery . Secondly, one can not only learn about the history of psychiatry, but also look at the amazing collection of art objects created by the insane . It deserves: after all , as a weight Many geniuses from the art world were not completely normal from the usual point of view. .

Currently, the Gislena hospital still fulfills its original functions. There is also a training center here.

The third part of the meeting is an extensive and interesting collection of art objects of people with mental disabilities, called Outsider Art.

In those days when the Gislen shelter was built, the attitude towards dementia and other mental deviations in society was far from humane .It was believed that they - people over, and the maximum that can be done with them - is to be removed from the eyes of society forever, locked in a cage like wild beasts . Professor Joseph Geislen did a lot to change this . He became the forerunner of modern views on psychiatry as a branch of medicine that deals specifically with treatment - that is, can cure . Gislen was the first to receive an official license in this field in the Southern Netherlands and participated in the development of new laws on the mentally retarded and dealing with him .

Dr. Gislen Museum in Ghent

Gislena Hospital, becoming the first psychiatric clinic in the country, long served as a model for others . When in 1850 the . city council decided to build a clinic, Dr. Gislen in as a mandatory condition, put forward the requirement to place it in a nice place for the eyes and a quiet place, outside the city . He met, and today the Gislena hospital stands in the middle of 9 hectares of lawns and trees . The building began in 1853 . and lasted until 1876 ​​g . Beautiful hospital building for more than 20 years of construction has acquired the features of different architectural styles: Neo-Romanesque windows characteristic shape and friezes of brick, neo-gothic pinnacles, arcades in the courtyard in the neoclassical style . The design used yellow stone and red brick; and Gislen had to give in to the requirements of the municipality and to allow against his will to take the windows with gratings .

Inside the clinic there were not just patient rooms: there were workshops for simple physical work, gyms for physical education and classrooms for classes in the elementary school. But there were, of course, rooms for constant incarceration, and insulators.

Do not be afraid that in the museum you will see oppressive pictures of stone cells with bars and monstrous tools resembling instruments of torture. Here everything is very civilized, and many people from the art world: designers, artists, actors - visit the museum to expand their view of the world and people.

The museum was opened in 1986 ., and at that time the visit was more interesting to those who are interested in the issue of professional interest . But even in this form the opening of the museum was a landmark event: the townsfolk for the first time had an opportunity to see for their own eyes what is happening in the world so different from them . In the first decades of operation, the museum administration made a titanic effort to expand the collection to interest the general public. . Today you can see old medical devices and ancient books, engravings and paintings on thematic subjects, and in afterwards - and the work of talented authors who gained fame, despite some mental deviations .

The permanent exposition of the museum consists of three parts . The first is connected with the history of psychiatry, starting from primitive cultures, where the madness was attributed to the influence of evil spirits, through The Middle Ages, when crazy people were burned at the stake to drive out the devil, to the 19-20th centuries when psychiatry took shape as a science . The second part of the collection is a photo archive . The earliest materials in it are dated 1860 g ., including and portraits of the psychic and sick people, destroying stereotypes of madmen as ugly and repulsive creatures . The third part of the collection is an extensive and interesting collection of art objects of people with mental disabilities, called Outsider Art . In 2002 . this meeting was enlarged due to the extensive income from the Netherlands collection of the Stadthof Foundation - more than 6 thousand . works received a "permanent residence permit" in two new exhibition halls .

Practical information

Address: Jozef Guislainstraat, 43.

Working time: Tuesday - Sunday from 9:00 to 17:00.

Entry: for adults 8 EUR, for visitors 22-26 years: 3 EUR, for visitors 12-22 years: 1 EUR, for children under 12 years old free admission.