The hospital’s heritage history
The importance of the Saint-Alban hospital for the history of the Lozère and psychiatry, the pioneering role played after the war by the institution in the renovation of psychiatry under the direction of François Tosquelles, make of the former asylum of Saint-AlbanAlban a prestigious as well as heterogeneous ensemble on the architectural level: castle to the Renaissance court, administration building characteristic of the sober and monumental public architecture, very simple buildings of the 1960s whose chapel is the spectacular element by the triangular shape of its facade, its high slate roofs and its impressive decoration. The cemetery of the madmen is a place of recollection, witness of the reception that was made, in this remote region of the Margeride by doctors engaged in the Resistance, as well to the madmen, refugees, politicians, Jews…
In 1821, a brother of the order of Saint-Jean-de-Dieu, Hilarion Tissot, founded a house to house insane people, transferred to Saint-Alban when the prefect of the department bought the castle of Saint-Alban. The departmental asylum created by royal decree of January 19, 1825 welcomes patients from the department of Lozère, neighbouring departments (Haute-Loire, Aveyron, Gard), but also from the Seine, Hautes-Alpes, Loiret, Oran, Algiers, Tunis.
Installed in the old Morangian castle, the asylum was enlarged by the construction of several wings in 1850. A majestic administration building was built in 1866. At the end of the 19th century, new expansion works were undertaken: an agricultural colony was installed in 1888 in the neighbouring farm of Villaret and between 1895 and 1899 the departmental architect Germer-Durand created three pavilions for the men’s quarter (partially replaced by new premises in 2015).
The creativity of patients
Led by the Catalan psychiatrist François Tosquelles (1912-1994), the Saint-Alban hospital was a place of great creativity from 1940 to 1962. Passed to posterity both for having maintained ties with the Resistance, for having hidden Paul Éluard and his wife Nusch, then Tristan Tzara, and for having fostered the creativity of patients artists spotted very early by Jean Dubuffet, as part of institutional psychotherapy Breaking down the walls of the asylum.
The combined work of architects and sculptors
It is to the departmental and resistant architect Jean Lyonnet (1902-1964) that we owe in 1964-65 the construction of a new chapel and the building of the community of the sisters of Saint-Régis, who care for the sick. The decoration of the chapel (altar, bas-reliefs in pink Rouget stone, representing the symbols of the apostles, Stations of the Cross in granite and stained glass) was designed by the sculptor Roger Marion (1934-2015) and made with the sick, at the request of Tosquelles.
After the castle that housed the women’s quarter burned down in 1971, new buildings were built above and north of the hospital complex by architect André Poulain. The change in hospitalization methods led to the decommissioning of many buildings and the construction of new reception structures.
By prefectural decree of 26 January 2023, the facades and roofs of the former administration building were inscribed as historical monuments; chapel, facades and roofs of the former community building adjoining the chapel, Madmen’s cemetery with the driveway.
Image gallery
You can see the views of the old buildings, the chapel, the cemetery, the stained glass windows...
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