Abandoned mental asylums had sort of been the thing of this summer. I had found a nice and useful list of former mental asylums, and as I now was doing a tour on Finland, I decided to visit them all.
This mental asylum had originally been a mansion, which was bought by the town to be used as a municipal home. In the 1960’s a large new hospital building was built and the place became a mental asylum. Even staff apartments were built to the area.
In the 2010’s the hospital had vacated the old mansion, which now housed a unit for alcoholists and other people with difficulties with their living. The 1960’s hospital building was starting to be in a rather bad shape, so they decided to close everything down and move the units to the town centre.
The premises were vacated, the town bought the area and slated several buildings for demolition.
The first building I found in the area was a former auxiliary building and heating facility built in the late 1970’s.
The mansion and former municipal home from the 1920’s. This building is protected and the planned demolition didn’t affect it.
The building was wonderful, but judging by the state of the stairs also in the need of a renovation. The problem was its location. It was far away from everything.
Next to it was the main hospital. Its impending demolition really wasn’t a loss to Finnish architecture.
The hospital was built on a hillside facing a small lake. It had two floors, but the lower one was partially underground.
The building was so long, it was impossible to picture it in just one photo.
This building was behind the old mansion. I first thought that it was a part of the hospital, but it later turned out that this wasn’t the case. We’ll get to this story later.
The staff apartments next to the hospitals were still in use.
One room completely filled with files. I wonder, what was inside them.
The low wing contained some garages and stuff. Someone has even forgotten an old ambulance here.
This is kind of funny, if you understand Finnish. The text says Danger of explosion in this space, but the space could also translate to state – saying literally that being an ex is a state where there’s a danger of explosion.
The two storey part of the hospital was the shape of the letter E with the wings facing the lake.
One thing, which puzzled me a lot, was, that nothing had been broken despite the building having been empty already for some time. Local vandals weren’t very talented, it seemed.
Another thing, which greatly puzzled me was, that a mini golf course was stored in the back yard of the hospital. I mean, where had it come from.
I’m probably not the only one, who prefers the old to the new here.
There was really nothing else to do here apart from my walkaround.