In Significación e identidad del manicomio en la ciudad, Iris Krawczyk investigates the evolving urban presence of psychiatric institutions, tracing their symbolic, spatial, and emotional resonances within the city fabric. Focusing on the Dr. Domingo Cabred Neuropsychiatric Hospital in Buenos Aires, the article articulates how the manicomio functions not only as a space of confinement and control but as a contested node in the collective urban imaginary. Drawing on theories of institutional semiotics and territorial identity, Krawczyk demonstrates how the physical marginalisation of asylums—typically built on city peripheries—mirrors the symbolic expulsion of madness from the urban order. Yet, over time, these spaces acquire layers of affect, memory, and resistance that challenge their original function. Residents of the adjacent towns, former patients, and health workers interact with the manicomio as a territorial relic, charged with both stigma and nostalgia. The study employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining historical documentation, spatial analysis, and interviews, to reveal the urban ambiguity of the asylum: simultaneously feared, forgotten, and familiar. As urban growth encroaches upon these once-isolated sites, Krawczyk argues for the recognition of psychiatric institutions as heritage landscapes, whose identities demand preservation, reinterpretation, and critical care. The article calls for urban policies that integrate mental health infrastructure not as zones of exception but as integral parts of the city—accessible, visible, and responsive to contemporary needs. In doing so, it reframes the manicomio not as an architectural anomaly but as a palimpsest of urban exclusion and transformation, demanding ethical reflection and civic remembrance.
Krawczyk, I. (2019) ‘Significación e identidad del manicomio en la ciudad. El caso del Hospital Neuropsiquiátrico Dr. Domingo Cabred (Buenos Aires, Argentina)’, URBS. Revista de Estudios Urbanos y Ciencias Sociales, 9(2), pp. 63–74.