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SUMMARY:The challenge of the asylum mortuary in early 20th-century Central
  Europe - Leslie Topp (Birkbeck\, University of London and CRASSH\, Cambri
 dge)
DTSTART:20120214T130000Z
DTEND:20120214T140000Z
UID:TALK35081@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Leon Rocha
DESCRIPTION:In the early twentieth century\, Central European lunatic asyl
 ums were built according to the villa system\, meaning that patients and s
 ervices were \nhoused in multiple small structures spread across the asylu
 m grounds. One of these structures was always a mortuary\, which combined 
 spaces for the temporary storage of the corpses of patients who had died w
 hile in the asylum\, with a room for post-mortem dissection\, laboratories
  and a chapel for Catholic funeral rites.\n\nEach element of the mortuary'
 s use (or 'programme' in architectural terms) was connected with thorny\, 
 emotionally charged and ideologically loaded issues. The challenge this pr
 ogramme posed to the architect was in part spatial - how to combine interd
 ependent but mutually incoherent functions\, and users. And in a context -
  early modernism - which stressed the clear expression of purpose through 
 architecture\, the asylum mortuary also pushed architectural communication
  to its limits.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 1\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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