‘Kiyo’ Azumi was a core member of the Weyburn team and tripped with the nurses
Kiyoshi Azumi built six ‘ideal mental hospitals’
Architects Henrik Bull and Erik Clough wrote chapters for Ralph Metzner’s The Ecstatic Adventure.
They took part in noted creativity and problem-solving exercises under the influence of LSD during the 1960s. Architecture has arguably become the trade most closely associated with psychedelic self-improvement since.
The first modern-day architect to get turned on though was Kiyoshi ‘Kiyo’ Azumi. Commissioned to revamp Canada’s asylum buildings by Osmond and Hoffer, you can probably guess what happened after they met in 1956 under the proviso of ‘learning how the patients perceive their environment.’
A long friendship developed: the first ‘ideal mental hospital’ in Yorktown, Saskatchewan was opened in 1965, another five were built in Canada, and a further in Pennsylvania USA.
Izumi’s book LSD and Architecture specifies the following conclusions:
1 Provide as much privacy as possible.
2 Minimise ambiguity of architecture’s design and detail.
3 Bear no intimidating features.
4 Foster spatial interactions that curtail the frequency and intensity of undesirable confrontations.
More here.
Izumi passed away in 1996, and Weyburn was demolished in 2009.
