Galerie
Inventory Grisons Beverin
Inventory Grisons Waldhaus
Psychiatrische Dienste Graubünden, Psychiatrische Kliniken Beverin und Waldhaus Chur, Sammlungen Waldhaus und Beverin
Canton Graubünden has had its own “madhouse” since 1892 on the site of the former Waldhaus. It was the first Swiss psychiatric hospital with electric light, as they were very proud to mention. The director from 1890–1930 was the psychiatrist Johann Joseph Jörger sen. (1860–1933), followed by his son Benedikt Jörger (1886–1957). Jörger sen. was the first to conduct genealogical research on Yenish families, whose names he encoded. This research later became the basis for the organization Hilfswerk für die Kinder der Landstrasse. Waldhaus was soon overfilled, and new annexes were added. A proposal to build a “patient care institution” in the village of Realta in Domleschg was passed by a referendum held in the canton, and the new institution opened in 1919. This valley had been the home of the canton’s very first such institution, the workhouse, founded in 1840, which was replaced in 1873 with the Korrektionsanstalt Realta. The Asyl Neu-Realta, today the Psychiatrische Klinik Beverin, was a fenced-in complex of nine pavilions in a pine forest, and seventy women and an equal number of men were kept here. As of 1924, there was a working colony where “calm and able-bodied” patients were accepted who had to earn their stay. Of around 4,680 patient files from the clinics of Waldhaus and Beverin from 1892 to 1930, around one fourth (1,487 files) were studied. One hundred and one works—sixty-four from the Waldhaus Archive and thirty-seven from Beverin—created by twenty-two men and two women were found.
Exhibition
2018-2019 “Extraordinaire! Unbekannte Werke aus psychiatrischen Einrichtungen in der Schweiz um 1900/Extraordinairy! Unknown Works from Psychiatric Institutions in Switzerland around 1900“, Sammlung Prinzhorn, Heidelberg, Kunstmuseum Thun, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz (Catalogue d/e)
References
Huonker, Thomas, Vorgeschichte, Umfeld, Durchführung und Folgen des „Hilfswerks für die Kinder der Landstrasse“, Zürich 1987
Joerger, J.J., Heil- und Pflegeanstalt Waldhaus, Masans bei Chur, Graubünden, Verlag Eckhardt&Pesch, Zürich 1932
Joerger, Johan Joseph, Psychiatrische Familiengeschichte, Berlin 1919
Luchsinger, Katrin, Hirsch, Helen, Röske Thomas (Hrsg.), Extraordinaire! Unbekannte Werke aus psychiatrischen Einrichtungen in der Schweiz um 1900 / Extraordinairy! Unknown works from Swiss Psychiatric Institutions around 1900, Zürich 2018
Mogharini-Zweidler, Liliane, Der Psychiater Johan Joseph Joerger (1860-1933), Zürich 1975
Schulz, Stefan, Jörger, Johan Joseph: Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz
Tuffli, F., Asyle Realta und Rothenbrunnen, Graubünden, Verlag Eckhardt&Pesch, Zürich 1932