After the asylum: value, stigma, and strategic forgetting in three historic former asylums

ABSTRACT

The value of an object or building requires people to view it as something worthy of being valued in the first place, whether economically or culturally. When buildings are valued for their heritage nature, the redevelopment of these buildings is often controversial and contentious. This process is more complicated for historic buildings with negative or stigmatised pasts, such as former asylums. Such buildings are often difficult to access, and stakeholders rarely want to talk about the respective histories – leading to little research in this area. In response, this article examines this controversial domain through the lens of building redevelopment. This is because, at the point of redevelopment, perceptions of value come to the fore and coalesce, giving rise to conflict and debate regarding which type(s) of value are deemed most important by respective stakeholder groups. The article provides a new cross-disciplinary approach that blends academic literature from the disciplines of geography, heritage and real estate with data from practitioners in order to understand the multiplicity of viewpoints that relate to historic sites with difficult histories. Situated within a sample of three former asylum redevelopments, semi-structured interviews with developers, planners, and heritage body professionals have been carried out to understand the values attributed to each site as new use is negotiated. Original findings indicate that aesthetic considerations are ascribed most value. However, this finding is situated within a more complicated picture of the sites’ history. Conclusions suggest that an ‘acceptable level’ of stigma was present which enabled the sites redevelopment without the often-seen controversy of heritage redevelopments.

KEYWORDS:

• Dark real estate
• asylums
• reuse
• stigma
• buildings of control and reform
• value

Introduction

This paper aims to understand how the historic buildings associated with former asylum use are valued by different actors during the development process. In doing so, the paper seeks to provide a more nuanced debate that moves beyond the simplistic dichotomy of heritage professional as protectors of history and developers as corruptors of this situation. It blends perspectives from studies in asylums, heritage, history, geography and real estate studies in order to present a cross-disciplinary view of how the different stakeholders involved in property development view the sites on which they are working and the effect this has on the redevelopment. The focus is important because there is a strong and persistent perception of conflict between heritage and redevelopment (Kalman 2014; Emerick 2017; Gibbeson 2018b). Redevelopment of historic buildings is conventionally presented as a conflict between preservation (seen as progressive) and capitalism (seen as destructive) in which developers are accused of removing or forgetting history (Moons, Kearns, and Joseph 2015; Pendlebury, Wang, and Law 2019). In the unequivocal framing of heroes or villains, there is little room to consider the role of the main actors in the development process who all possess different positionalities and different notions of selectivity. In order to further the discussion of the reuse of dark or ‘uncomfortable’ (Pendlebury, Wang, and Law 2019) historic buildings, a field still largely underexplored, this paper argues that this dichotomy is unhelpful, unrealistic, and potentially dangerous. The approach adopted in this article is significant because the reproach of selective forgetting is solely, and often uncritically, levelled at the developers during this process, and yet this article will argue that all stakeholders within the process of redevelopment engage in selective remembering, forgetting or valorisation. This argument is novel because polarising debates on historic sites hinders constructive discussion about the future of these sites – particularly in relation to what and who should be remembered and retained. This article will contend that a focus on the aesthetic qualities of heritage sites and the selective remembering of a place’s history is not just carried out by developers, but by all stakeholders involved in the reuse of historic buildings and sites. The argument and the associated findings have relevance for heritage in this country but also heritage professionals, developers, policymakers and communities struggling with the future use of buildings with difficult histories.

This paper focuses on the redevelopment of three historic former asylums sites as they transitioned to residential use. All three were located in the North of England with data obtained through semi-structured interviews with developers, owners, heritage professionals, planners and conservation officers. It uses semi-structured interviews as a way to understand an underexplored and hard to access area of research. The next section in this article examines the existing literature on selective remembering and forgetting for historic sites, particularly those with contentious histories, before considering how value and significance have been conceptualised in existing studies. It then looks at how value changes over time, arguing that this is a result of constant renegotiations of what is considered to be valuable but that heritage often seeks to ‘fix’ value at a particular point in time. The article then explores the effect of stigma on heritage sites. Methodology is then discussed, including the use of Mason’s (2008) and Thompson’s (1979) Rubbish Theory as a conceptual framework to discuss the findings, which follow. These are then outlined in detail and implications for practice and relevance to existing literature are explored before conclusions are drawn.

Historic building reuse and selective valorisation

In order to survive the obsolescence of its original function an historic building may be required to adopt an alternative economic use (English Heritage 2013; Pendlebury, Wang, and Law 2019). For such buildings in the UK, their final outcomes are derived from the results of negotiations and discussions between different stakeholders, including developers, heritage bodies, planners, conservation officers, as well as the views of the general public. These negotiations usually occur during the planning process, which considers the proposed adaptations or modifications to the buildings and determine what features must be kept and which elements can be demolished or altered. An inevitable and sometimes unintended consequence is that these discussions on the physical building affect the intangible dimension; as they involve ‘decisions about which stories will be carried forward from the building’s past’ (Pendlebury, Wang, and Law 2019, 211).

In the context of contended (contentious) heritage, the terms ‘selective forgetting and remembering’ have been employed by several authors (Stromberg, Linehan, and Boyd 2012; Moons, Kearns, and Joseph 2015, for example) and refer to the selective presentation and memorialisation of sites, such as former asylums. This article examines the way professional stakeholders view these sites through the lens of different ways of valuing them and contends that more inter- or trans-disciplinary attention should be paid to each group of stakeholders involved in the negotiation of a new, successor use for a site. This is because how these parties collectively value these sites will play a key role in determining what material and symbolic elements are retained. By doing so, an understanding of the level people are invested in the history, or parts of that history, would be gained, and this would challenge the idea of buildings being static or ‘fixed’ in time (Edensor 2005). Consequently, this would enable a more critical discussion of a place’s history, what should be remembered and retained, and what can be forgotten. It is therefore relevant to both national planning and heritage policy debates and particularly for those historic sites that are seen as stigmatised and negative.

While previous work reflects on the perceived value of sites with arguably ‘difficult’ (Moons, Kearns and Joseph 2015) or ‘uncomfortable’ (Pendlebury, Wang, and Law 2019) history, these sources do not look at the views of the full range of stakeholders during adaptive reuse. As Pendlebury, Wang, and Law (2019) argue, there is significant literature that looks at the remaking of meaning in the reuse of psychiatric asylums. However, this literature tends to look at meaning from discipline-specific perspectives, such as cultural geography, through analysis of marketing brochures, as in Moons, Kearns and Joseph (2015) or through architecture and its focus upon the changing architectural perception of these institutions (Franklin 2002). This article orientates itself from a real estate perspective. This is a relatively unique perspective to consider in this situation. Whilst some authors (Chaplin and Peters 2003; Moons, Kearns, and Joseph 2015) have discussed the real estate perspective, as it relates to former asylums, this is typically from the domain of other disciplines (such as human geography, urban and heritage studies) and is applied uncritically – often the real estate developer is an uncontested other who is only concerned with extracting value from a given site. In contrast, this article positions itself from within the real estate domain and seeks to show how different stakeholders in the redevelopment process hold their own varied positions and selectivity, usually related to their occupational training, regarding the history of these sites. Real estate focuses on the actors, assets (here former asylum buildings) and factors of development and therefore taking a real estate perspective provides an alternative perspective on the meanings of value and different perceptions of value from within three developments.

Conceptualising value and significance

The concepts of ‘value’ and ‘significance’ are frequently employed by the real estate and heritage sectors when discussing the reuse of the historic built environment. Discerning the ‘value’ of a historic building is often where the conflict and contention lies within the process of reuse and adaptation, namely because of the perceived incompatibility between heritage, or cultural (intangible) value, and economic, or monetary (tangible) value. There is a significant body of the literature dedicated to examining whether it is possible to compare and combine economic and cultural value (Lichfield 1988; Throsby 2001; Mason 2005, 2006, 2008). For property professionals, value is viewed in terms of economics, money and viability (Issac 2002; the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors [RICS] 2014), whereas heritage professionals would argue that different types of value make up the significance or importance of a particular heritage building (English Heritage 2008). Property valuers assess value by reflecting on location, demand and supply, the physical environment, and wider economic and social considerations in determining and rental, sales or investment price. The RICS (2014) directs valuers of historic buildings to consider additional factors such as the historic nature and architectural impact on value and any constraints of the historic statutory framework when employing traditionally used methods of valuation for historic buildings.

Value is a ‘complex concept’ (Guy and Henneberry 2002, 3) because there are many typologies and conceptions, which can be considered during the process of conversion from one use to another. Additionally, ‘values are not fixed; they are in some respects situational, and change over time’ (Mason 2006, n.p) as a result of the interaction between people who value buildings in different ways at different points in time. The application of economic value to historic buildings is controversial as ‘preservationists have traditionally seen aesthetic or historic values as the most important. Economic values, when they are introduced into the discussion by a developer or owner or elected official, tend to trump others’ (Mason 2006, n.p). Consequently, when economic value is seen as being chosen over heritage values within a redevelopment approval process, the decision is seen as ignoring the heritage of a locality or putting economic gain first (Gibbeson 2018b) - and yet when economic value is ignored, this undermines the long-term viability of heritage assets. Historic buildings can only survive if they continue to adapt. The inherent tension in the redevelopment of historic buildings derives from the co-existence of property values, which are seen as being held by one individual or organisation, as opposed to heritage values, which are perceived as being something for everyone.

Change in value and perception over time

Thompson (1979) explored how value was attributed to objects across time and argued that objects (including buildings) can move between different categories of value during their lifespan. He suggested, like Gibson and Pendlebury (2009), that value is socially constructed, not intrinsic, and it is this social construction of value that enables objects to move between being considered as ‘rubbish’ or as something that is valued and becomes ‘durable’ (Thompson 1979). For an object to change in ‘value perception’ it must somehow acquire value and gain an expected lifespan (Thompson 1979). For the property professional, the procedures for valuing a historic property are not different to those used when appraising non-historic properties (RICS Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors 2014). However, the RICS advises its valuers that ‘historic properties may present more challenges for the valuer because of their particular characteristics’ (2014, 4). These ‘particular characteristics’ are what is often seen by the heritage industry as being innately valuable (L. Smith 2006) but this is also not straightforward, nor agreed upon by all (Gibson and Pendlebury 2009). Harrison (2012, 2013) has argued that in modern heritage practices, heritage is not in fact seen as a universal category of value and that over time the value of some buildings change, and they should no longer be classified as heritage. In practice, delisting rarely occurs in the UK; reasons to do so include if the statutory criteria for that listing are no longer met or if new evidence about the lack of architectural or historic interest comes to light (Historic England 2019). And yet, as Munoz Vinas (2005) argued, function and value are closely related and as uses and requirements change over time, sometimes historical value decreases but functional value increases with the intervention in the fabric of the building. Echoing central arguments in this article, he also stated that the final decisions on these areas must be the result of compromise, negotiation, and dialogue.

Dark heritage and the effect of stigma

The history of former asylums is often complicated and contested. Large Victorian asylums became part of local mythology (Korman and Glennester 1990). It has even been argued that the perceived transfer of stigma of the ‘mad’ or mentally ill connected with the original use of asylum sites has been transferred to the buildings themselves (Mellett 1982; Philo 2004; Moons, Kearns, and Joseph 2015) although this interpretation has been challenged in recent years (for example, C. Smith 2006; Ellis 2013) demonstrating the complicated nature of asylum’s perceived history. The overriding perception of these sites is a negative one; they are seen as having ‘tainted reputations’ (Moons, Kearns and Joseph 2015) which limit their reuse (Franklin 2002; Kucik 2004), although as Kearns, Joseph and Moons (2010, 732) argue, there has been little investigation into how this reputation and stigma stemming from that past use has ‘persisted or been overcome in the transition to successor use’. They equally have argued that the issue of heritage within these institutions has been overlooked, something that this article begins to address with its new conceptual position.

Pendlebury, Wang and Law (2019) suggest that creating a new narrative for a place is part of the marketing process for that new location, and that this process seeks to remove the more unsavoury parts of a place’s past. Places are renamed, architectural features emphasised, and a lifestyle is sold to prospective purchasers, none of which refer to the history of the place. Ironically, developers have been reported as employing adjectives in their marketing literature that imply ‘seclusion’ and ‘sanctuary’ (Chaplin and Peters 2003; Moons, Kearns, and Joseph 2015), characteristics that could in fact have been attributed to the former use of asylums at their conception. It is important to note that the professional role of a developer is one that is trained to concentrate on the present and future of a site, rather than looking to the past. The focus upon the site’s history is a role undertaken by other professionals working within the development and reuse process.

The negative, stigmatised image of former asylums has been challenged, and represents in itself a selective view of these sites. The links between asylums and local communities have been well documented and discussed (Ellis 2013), as has the use of asylums for respite by families caring for ill staff (C. Smith 2006). Equally, Gibbeson (2020) has demonstrated how former staff members considered these sites as their homes and communities, remembering them with great fondness. Patients and staff formed important, caring, and lasting relationships (Beckman, Nelson, and Labode 2021; Calabria, Bailey, and Bowpitt 2021) thus challenging perceptions of these places as purely negative, dark, and uncaring. Viewing former asylum sites in this way is only one, highly selective view of them and their history and fails to examine other interpretations and histories. In her exploration of Colney Hatch Asylum, Weiner (2004) raises the question of selective remembrance, arguing that the people who had lived and worked there had been erased, contending that only a highly selective version of history was being preserved. Weiner (2004) is not only levelling this accusation at developers, as she suggests that the selective remembering, forgetting or modification of history at Colney Hatch was actually carried out in the name of preservation itself, thereby demonstrating that those in the heritage sector are equally responsible for the selective remembering and forgetting of sites.

Issues with the dichotomy of democratisation, authority and expertise have been widely discussed as questions within heritage literature (for example, see Waterton, Smith, and Campbell 2006) with Gibson and Pendlebury (2009) suggesting democratisation, authority and expertise is a particular concern for heritage preservation as heritage seeks to fix objects at a particular point in time or for particular values and significance. If this is the case, then the selectivity or bias of stakeholders is key to determining which values to focus on or privilege above others, driven by their own perceptions or professional training (Gibbeson 2022). As L. Smith (2006) has argued, the heritage sector seeks to control what can be deemed to be ‘heritage’ or valuable and privileges a reification of elite values for which former asylums, because of their past, present a challenge. Perhaps this is why, as Franklin (2002) argued, the focus of preservation turns commonly to their architectural merit.

Despite the presence of such complexities when defining value within the heritage sector, a common accusation levelled at developers is that their industry collectively makes the choice to strategically forget the parts of the history of a building that are too difficult to deal with (Pendlebury 2009; Moons, Kearns, and Joseph 2015). These claims appear particularly in the case of ‘difficult heritage’ (MacDonald 2009) or ‘negative heritage’ (Meskell 2002; Moses 2015). Historic former asylums clearly sit within this category as everyday sites with a difficult past, which is manifested during its reuse. Consequently, they were picked for this study as sites in which to examine how remembering and forgetting unfolded through the process, and to assess how complicated the decision-making processes were. Situating this article from within a real estate perspective enables the complicated reality of development, value and property to be examined from a new perspective.

Methodology

Three historic former asylums situated in the North of England, two in the North-East and one in the North-West, were the focus of the wider research project discussed in this article. These three sites were studied at the point of their redevelopment into a new use, that of residential housing which is a common successor use for asylums (Franklin 2002; Chaplin and Peters 2003; Weiner 2004). The research evaluated the perceptions of various stakeholders including developers, heritage bodies, planners and conservation officers who were interviewed during the three years of this study. The types of value attributed to the sites by the stakeholders demonstrate what they each considered were the key attributes of the sites that should be remembered. The sites were chosen because they were at the moment of redevelopment, the temporal point at which the different stakeholders involved in that redevelopment interact and the moment at which the use of the building, its memories and people’s attachments to it are potentially challenged, changed and are given the opportunity to publicly come to the fore.

Within the context of the three study sites and the wider research project, 28 semi-structured interviews were conducted with developers, owners, planners and conservation officers, heritage body representatives, former staff members and 160 questionnaires (containing a mixture of open and closed questions) conducted with members of the public. The interviewees were chosen for the contribution they could make to the study (Denscome 1998) through their knowledge of the sites, their perspectives on the redevelopments and their professional backgrounds. The focus on the professional stakeholders in this article is to examine the process of valorisation at the point of redevelopment by those involved in the process. Staff responses to their respective sites and the redevelopments have been examined elsewhere (Gibbeson 2020; Gibbeson 2021), as are the responses of the public to their respective sites and developments (Gibbeson and Beattie 2021).

The use of semi-structured interviews enabled an understanding of how the professional stakeholders (the focus of this article) found meaning and value in the three sites. The data were analysed to identify themes arising and were found to correspond to a modified version of Mason’s (2008) typology of heritage value alongside an adapted version of Thompson’s (1979) Rubbish Theory as outlined in Table 1. These provided conceptual frameworks within which to capture the values and meanings expressed by participants. Four main categories of value were identified through the interview data. These were as follows: aesthetic, historic, economic and age value. Economic discussed any aspect of monetary, exchange, use and economic value attributed to the sites; aesthetic focused on the appearance of the sites; historical referred to the specific history of the sites, including social aspects, and age was separated out from Mason’s overarching ‘historic value’ to separate the age or how old the building was into a distinct value classification as the importance of the building being ‘old’ was seen differently to the specific history of the sites. The broader themes, including that of value, can be seen in Table 1 to provide an overview of how value was categorised from the data across time. Thompson’s (1979) Rubbish Theory has also been adapted in the table below for the extended stages within the lifespan of a historic building changing from one use to another as the original theory was felt to omit stages in that process.

Table 1. Explanation of themes by adapted Rubbish Theory time periods (Gibbeson 2018a).

	Original Use in use	Transient Use declining/stops	Rubbish Building empty	Transient Object becoming visible	Durable In use – new use as residential
Economic value	As occupation occurs, practices increase the existing use value	Original use declines, building becomes obsolete, costs of maintenance rise Market value falls	Decay – costs of maintenance/repair high Investment/asset value declining	Market value rising Perceived to be worth converting – this is affected by the other “heritage” values	Developers realise sales values New residents perceive good value in buying Market value dependent on property market values
Age value	No age value at the initial building phase but this gradually starts to increase as the building ages	Building is considered old when closed – Victorian or Edwardian buildings	Age value increasing – starts to combine with other “heritage” values and begins to affect market value	Continues to increase and combines with other “heritage” values to increase market value	Age value continues to increase. Age and Aesthetic value become main reasons for preservation and purchase of converted buildings
Historical value (inc social)	No historical value yet as in use for original purpose	Rise of Historic value alongside other “heritage” values. Staff perceive it as having social value	Continues to rise but seen as having social value in its historical context by planners, heritage bodies and the public	Public and staff say it should be remembered Social part of historical value still important to some.	Some new residents interested in the history Age and Aesthetic value become main reasons for preservation and purchase of converted buildings
Aesthetic value	Aesthetics are seen as being part of the treatment for patients	Aesthetic value increases with other “heritage” values although the building structure becomes obsolete	Heritage Bodies and planners are aware of the Aesthetic value	Rises still – developers now have perceived it and this converts to the ability to make money – use value New residents attracted	New residents are buying because of the aesthetic qualities of the sites.

The analysis of data within this article relies on a values-based methodology, however it is important to note that this is not without its challenges. As Emerick (2017) argues, this is the prevailing approach within heritage management. However, a values-based approach can fail to allow for emotional responses to place and a variety of response to places to be included. A values-based approach, in forcing heritage qualities into separate or distinct values, can fail to offer a full assessment of heritage and therefore lacks in inclusivity or diversity. The approach is adopted here to illustrate what happens practically at the point of redevelopment, but it is acknowledged that it is not without its flaws or critiques.

The choice of interview participants resulted from the site selection process as the professional stakeholders were contacted through the planning process documentation. It is therefore important to discuss the reasoning for the site selections. Redevelopment had either commenced on site, or a planning application had been submitted for this purpose. To identify these sites, their exact situation at the time of the study was first determined. The most comprehensive list of former asylums in England was established (because Wales, Scotland and Ireland all have slightly different heritage designation processes) through The Time Chamber (2013) and Taylor’s (1991) Hospital and Asylum Architecture 1840–1914. Variables to narrow down the list were chosen and included stage of development (most importantly), location, whether they were listed, their size, current ownership (if known) and date or age of asylum. Where sites were going to be demolished completely these were removed from the list as the study focused on heritage assets and the removal of buildings effectively removed the heritage assets. This resulted in two sites in the north-east and one in the north-west being identified. All three closed towards the end of 1990s, lying empty for a period of up to 20 years before developers acquired the sites and started the redevelopment process. Their names and exact locations have been anonymised to protect the identity of participants. To do this, the sites have been given numbers (S1 = Site 1) and the professionals are denominated by their job role, so D = developer, P = planner, HP = heritage professional, CO = conservation officer and PC = planning consultant. All ethical requirements were complied with from the research institution, and participants were provided with information sheets and consent forms prior to the interviews.

Economic, aesthetic, historic and age values

Four main categories of value were identified through analysis of the interview data based on Mason’s (2008) typology of heritage values. These were as follows: aesthetic, historic, economic and age value. Every professional stakeholder, across each of the three sites, highlighted the importance of the aesthetic value of the former asylum. The developers viewed the sites as ‘stately home like’ (S3D) and an ‘architectural history worth preserving’ (S2D) and these comments were not limited to the site that had a listed building designation. One developer described their site as having ‘quality and prestige’ (S2D) which is associated with the perceived cachet that people value in heritage properties when they are looking to purchase, because age and historic status creates additional value. The comparisons of former asylums to ‘stately homes’ (S3D) corresponded with Franklin (2002) and Weiner’s (2004) discussion of the reappraisal of these sites for their architectural value. The professional role of a developer seeks to create places where people want to live, and houses people want to buy. Therefore, seeing these sites in a positive light and utilising their perceived aesthetic value may enable them to achieve this aim.

However, it was not only the developers who concentrated on aesthetic value as the predominant way of viewing these sites; the heritage professionals also highlighted their aesthetic qualities. Trained heritage professionals evaluate sites on a ‘significance basis’, using the four categories of value as set out by Historic England’s Conservation Principles (English 2008). One category of significance is ‘aesthetic value’ but this is seen as being only one aspect of a building’s significance alongside historic, community, and evidential values. The planners also emphasised the aesthetic value and architectural qualities of the three sites, as well as the setting of the sites more broadly. They were viewed as ‘incredible buildings’ (PC1) with a ‘lovely external detail’ (CO1) and ‘almost ecclesiastical’ (CO1). The third planner viewed their site as being more institutional in appearance, but the wider site was seen as being particularly important. This planner, when asked if the history itself was important in considering the redevelopment, replied ‘it was more aesthetic […] we were always mindful of what it was […] it was more about the visual setting of the buildings’ (P2). This planner hinted at a more complex reading of these sites, something the heritage professionals also commented upon. Although they emphasised the architectural merits, and viewed the sites as being akin to a country house in terms of grandeur and architecture which outweighed any negativity (HP2) the heritage professionals also acknowledged the sites as being imposing or looming buildings (HP1, HP4). Here, the interweaving of the history of the site and the aesthetics of the sites made them complicated places with more than one way of viewing them.

Heritage buildings were not seen as being something that should be purely aesthetically beautiful (HP3; HP4) but they were seen as being more ‘mainstream’ due to the passage of time. One heritage professional (HP2) argued that the older something gets, the more likely people are to perceive it as valuable. Viewing a building as old and aesthetically pleasing therefore provide strong ways of valuing buildings as heritage. Viewing a building as old and scarce also creates economic value (Millington 2000) because if historic sites are perceived to be disappearing, they become more valuable in both economic and heritage terms. Whilst the developers and planners focused more on aesthetic value than historic or age, something that could be expected due to their professional training, they did identify the link between these two values and economic value citing the high demand for the properties because of their historic nature. The appreciation and valorisation of historic properties (in general terms) creates a demand for a scarce product that results in redevelopment becoming feasible thereby connecting the non-monetary values of age, history, and aesthetics with the economy.

It was also suggested by both the developers and the heritage professionals that it is this aesthetic value that outweighs any stigma that might be associated with these sites:

Redevelopment is a rebranding and giving a place new history and that’s what people are buying into

(HP4)

When you’re in a nice new apartment and you’ve got housing around you, it’s a totally different atmosphere

(S2D).

The very process of redevelopment changes the value of the sites through their changing image, however, the very process and time involved in that enables the focus to move from the specific historic value to the aesthetic value:

Maybe for some people there is that sort of … a positive… frisson that gives where they’re staying some sort of time depth. They may not necessarily be that bothered about the … the people who were there, they might be more interested in say who the architect was

(HP4).

The specific history of a place becomes less important as the age value increases. For former asylums, this could be seen as being connected to their former use as Moses (2015, 135) argued ‘temporal or social-cultural distance of context communities from the traumatic histories of a site allows for greater creativity in the interpretation and commemoration of those histories’. The ‘time-depth’ allows for the reappraisal and move away from historical value to age and aesthetic value. It is also the connection of this perceived change in value that generates the economic value in the sites that results in their redevelopment; if they were only perceived as having heritage value, whether age, historic or aesthetic value, then they would likely remain empty or be demolished.

Given that the perceived value of a place or building can and does change over time, then what is remembered and forgotten will undoubtedly change over time as a building is used, falls out of use, is adapted, and reused. The focus on age and aesthetic values forms part of that ‘prescribed forgetting’ (Bangstad 2014) but part of this process may also be caused by their very physicality; as HP3 argued, the size and cost of maintaining large buildings such as former asylums, means that organisations such as the National Trust and English Heritage were unlikely to take them or on turn them into a visitor attraction. This, consequently, reduces the opportunities for their remembrance as heritage and enables the other values of age, aesthetics, and economic value to come to the fore as alternative uses are found for the buildings that remain physically intact. Developers perceive economic value as a result of the demand for old, aesthetically pleasing buildings, planners identify their aesthetical significance through planning policies and heritage professionals, who Otero-Pailos, Gaiger, and West (2010) argue have always been focussed on aesthetic value, identify this through their professional training. All professional stakeholders therefore valorise these sites aesthetically and highlight specific aspects of these buildings, not only the developers. The important question to consider is therefore, from which professional angle they perceive this value and what impact that has on the reuse of the site. Through a better understanding of this between stakeholders, or a better understanding of each professional viewpoint, this may reduce the tensions inherent in historical building redevelopment. For former asylums, however, valorisation is not the only consideration and the question of whether the stigma of their former past use persisted must also be addressed.

Stigma, value, and redevelopment

Where elements of the built environment have challenging pasts, it has been argued that the reuse of these sites prevents demolition and therefore becomes in itself a form of preservation (Stromberg, Linehan, and Boyd 2012). Demolition has been the fate of many former asylum buildings; the reason for which has been attributed to their past uses carrying a stigma that is ‘harmful for resale’ (Pendlebury, Wang, and Law 2019). Stigma is a mark or taint that discredits a place and is often uncomfortable or unnerving (Goffman 1963; Wacquant 2007). One of the challenges for the stakeholders was the question of whether an existence of stigma persisted. For one developer:

I don’t feel there’s a stigma otherwise we wouldn’t be redeveloping it … . There’s no real stigma attached to these buildings anymore

(S2D).

Given that the professional role of a developer is to think of the future of sites, to convert, market and sell these buildings, any stigma could be considered a hindrance to these aims, and therefore something that should be downplayed. However, the same developer did suggest that a new apartment within the development would have a different feel to it, the emptiness created a particular atmosphere.

This ambiguity as to whether a stigma did or did not exist was shared by one of the planning professionals:

There is no stigma to a general point but people want to live in historic buildings

(S3PC)

This suggests that firstly a small amount of stigma remains attached to these buildings, however, this is overridden by the desire to live in a historic building, the perceived value of owning a historic building outweighs any potential negativity from the former use. However, other planning professionals expressed different opinions:

‘People wanted rid of the association’ (P3)

This planner is suggesting that the development was welcomed as a way of removing the previous stigma or association with the building’s perceived negative history. There was however some uncertainty over how many people felt this:

‘The idea might put some people off.” (P2)

A slight perception of a stigma can be seen but this is tempered by their historic nature, the value perceived in their heritage status is stronger than any negative image. This inconsistency was also demonstrated by the heritage professionals who stated:

‘It’s the negativity and the negative associations isn’t it? Almost like a “baggage”’ (HP2)

They are something packaged off and separated, not really visible … The public don’t see them, there’s a deliberate blindness about them

(HP4).

Here the suggestion is that former asylums are still stigmatised and negatively viewed by both the public but also the professionals themselves. However, this was contradicted by the same professional:

Other hospitals and workhouses have been reused so people don’t seem to be that bothered

(HP2)

Historic former asylums appear to be at an awkward point in their lifespan, still potentially perceived negatively and yet also that people are not so concerned about their pasts; they are less challenging (Lynch 1972; Virilio 1994; Stromberg, Linehan, and Boyd 2012) but the connotations have not completed faded. These connotations were clear when the professionals were asked how they felt about the sites:

I actually found what turned out to be the morgue … didn’t expect that when I got in there. Suddenly the mind starts playing games and you hear and start seeing shadows so made a quick exit

(P3)

‘Awesome building. Gothic. Slightly down at heel, a spooky feel’ (CO1)

The sites’ past experienced like ghosts physically and psychologically haunting the buildings however whilst the above two professionals appeared to attribute this to the past history of the sites, another planning posited the reason was due to the state of the buildings:

That site and X do make you feel a little bit eerie, just because of their nature. I don’t think it’s to do with the previous use, I think […] you’ve got so many buildings on that site, they’re all vacant, you’re walking around a completely vacant site like that on that scale, it’s quite eerie, quite intimidating

(P2)

The use of ‘eerie’, ‘spooky’ and ‘intimidating’ betrayed a perception of the sites that conflicts with the view expressed in the previous section that they were beautiful heritage buildings. However, they are sites that were clearly in the process of changing their connotations. One heritage professional felt that the history, given enough time:

‘Becomes a characterful story’ (HP3)

A certain amount of time must pass to enable these buildings to be perceived as being safer, less dark and less negative. As a result, this time distance from that history enables the reuse of these sites as there is an increasing distance from the events for which they were known (Stromberg 2012; Pendlebury, Wang, and Law 2019). This time distance also facilitates the revalorisation process discussed in the previous section to occur. Otero-Pailos, Gaiger, and West (2010, 81) argued that the ‘values behind conservation decisions come from wider currents in society and are subject to shifts as different priorities arise over time’. The time span from use, to closure to reuse of former asylums allowed each stakeholder group to engage in different processes of valorisation as changes in society’s perceptions of mental health and heritage have changed. In the reuse of the three historic former asylum sites discussed here, time has enabled or created a particular set of circumstances that allowed the negative connotations from their former history to reduce and for them to be perceived as aesthetically valuable and to be reused without the usual tensions involved in heritage reuse (Kalman 2014; Emerick 2017; Gibbeson 2018b).

Discussion

The selective remembrance of historic sites, here historic former asylums, has been often laid squarely at the feet of the developers (Franklin 2002; Moons, Kearns, and Joseph 2015) usually through the selective choice of which elements of the history of the site to retain and which to remove. As this article has discussed, however, each of the stakeholders involved in the process of reuse brings their own professional training to that reuse process and as a consequence, views the building or site in a particular way, with particular foci and therefore privileges certain values. It is in reuse projects where the relationship with the past is negotiated through the decisions of which fabric is kept and removed (Pendlebury, Wang, and Law 2019), through which is valued and why. Therefore, the charge of strategic forgetting or remembering can be levelled at all the professionals involved in the reuse process as negotiations must take place on what is kept, removed, valued, remembered, and forgotten.

The significance of this study’s findings is that all stakeholders, not just the developers, attributed aesthetic value to their respective sites according to their professional training, and this was the overriding type of value that was identified. The former history and potential stigma also played a part in how the sites were viewed by each of the professional stakeholder groups. To conclude that these sites were stigmatised and carried their original connotations through their reuse would be too simplistic a picture. The developers were keen to suggest no stigma existed, but the planning and heritage professionals painted a slightly more contradictory picture. In privileging aesthetic value, an ‘acceptable level of stigma’ was created enabling the reuse of the sites. The focus on the aesthetic and heritage aspects of the sites by the developers was linked to the demand for the sites by prospective purchasers, allowing them to find economic value and, consequently, the financial viability in developing the sites. For the planners, the focus on aesthetic value, even with an element of perceived stigma, created the ability to consider the sites for the settings and the potential this had for the new developments in terms of amenities and green spaces. For the heritage professionals, a more mixed reaction to the sites was expressed, but the sites were seen as important aspects of heritage to provide commentary on mental health history. None of the sites were the subject of heritage protection calls by the public, something that is often seen in heritage redevelopments (Kalman 2014; Gibbeson 2018b); the ‘acceptable level of stigma’ identified by stakeholders combined with the overriding focus on the aesthetics of the sites, enabled them to be reused and redeveloped but without the controversy usually seen with heritage redevelopments.

This raises wider questions for all the disciplines involved in heritage redevelopment discussions, both academic and practitioners in terms of what we protect, why and for whom. How does each stakeholder group construct, create and value heritage and what does this mean for its reuse or preservation? Multiple viewpoints are needed to explore these questions, something that Healey (1992; 1999) called for in the sphere of planning two decades ago. This article therefore reinforces this call for cross-disciplinary discussions, particularly for sites that are difficult to ask how they are valued by different groups and to assess the effect this has on the redevelopment potential. For challenging or stigmatised sites, the author would argue that we need to ask what we do with undesired (historic) buildings and how we address or identify the cause of this negativity, distaste, or devaluation. In doing so, questions around their functional awkwardness, specific use type or negative attributes (such as stigma) should be considered along with whether these views are caused by the previous use itself or the cultural coding of that use.

The reuse and redevelopment process for historic former asylums is complicated with multiple-competing values and perceptions all focused on the same site, thereby highlighting the challenge of redeveloping historic buildings more widely and accentuating the fact that the stakeholders within that process need to be aware of their professional training and ways of viewing sites, but more importantly how the other stakeholders in the process approach the same site. The uses and meanings of buildings with difficult or dark histories make the buildings more complicated to repurpose either because they have become ‘polluted’ (Thompson 1979) through damage or deterioration; equally their physical construction being for a specific use (for example, prisons) makes them expensive to reuse and restore; additionally accumulating intangible values, which are both positive and negative (heritage value or significance or stigma). Thus, their redevelopment could be argued to necessarily be a process of purging and stripping out to accumulate those features, which will ultimately lead to a positive development outcome. This can be seen in the focus on aesthetic value by the different stakeholder groups over the other values that are identified within the three sites discussed. While Pendlebury, Wang, and Law (2019) argue that it is difficult to sense the blood and guts that would have once slopped around the 1933 Shanghai Building, on reflection it could be argued that this be a feature that users realistically would not wish to perceive. If a building cannot be purged of those negative connotations that would disenfranchise future stakeholders, then surely no building would ever change its use. Redevelopment is about taking something overloaded with references, whether that be physical or symbolic, and making it capable of being something new. This can clearly be seen in the case of the three sites discussed in this article. The level of stigma that is perceived to persist as ‘acceptable’ enough that at the same time as they are also perceived as heritage buildings and reappraised as value (their aesthetic and age values outweighing the specifical historical value and thus creating economic value) created the right set of circumstances to allow these sites to be repurposed and reused without the often seen preservation controversies of other heritage redevelopment sites (Emerick 2017; Gibbeson 2018b).

As a result of making a building into something new, whether historic or not, every site will go through a strategic remembering, and forgetting as new meanings and values are negotiated. It is not necessarily only a heritage process undertaken by heritage professionals or one instigated by developers seeking to cover up uncomfortable elements of history; it always happens and, arguably, it is always needed. The significance and originality of this article is that it suggests that it is important for all stakeholders in the reuse process to consider how they view a particular site and why that might be and how that might affect their professional standpoint. We, as professionals or interested parties in heritage redevelopment, need to embrace that reality and accept that so-called stigmatised sites or heritage sites are no different from any other change process for any other site’s transition from an old use to a new use. The built environment has to be (and always has been) constantly repaired, remade and replaced, it cannot stand still even if we were to want it to. What is needed collectively, across disciplines, is to learn to live with that. This paper suggests that alongside the discussions that already exist in the heritage discipline as to whose stories are collected, remembered and whose are forgotten (DeSilvey and Harrison 2019), inter and cross-disciplinary discussions must also take place to understand the perspectives of others involved in the redevelopment, reuse, and preservation of the built environment. It is evident that buildings change and adapt, and the various professionals need to be aware of and respect each other’s positions and focus, rather than taking polarising stances that attack particular stakeholders or their views. By opening up discourse to explore views and motivations for a particular building or site a better outcome may be achieved. Ultimately, if buildings are not adapted then the far greater risk of loss is through disuse and demolition. Once removed they can never be replaced, and their history and meaning is forever removed from the collective consciousness.

Conclusion

Historic former asylums sit within the category of everyday sites with a difficult past, which often manifests during the reuse process. This makes them excellent sites to examine the process of valorisation that unfolds for each of the stakeholder groups within that process and the consequences of this. All the stakeholders involved in the process attribute particular values with particular foci to these sites, often as a result of their professional training, background and experience as this helps them ‘view’ the sites in particular ways. This article does not seek to point a finger of blame at all stakeholders, but rather suggests that those involved in the redevelopment of historical buildings should consider other perspectives and professional backgrounds when approaching the reuse of sites, and to be open to considering these other perspectives when negotiating the future of a site or building.

Practitioners from real estate, heritage and planning who are involved in the reuse of heritage sites, need to be aware of the history of the sites on which they are working but how others within the process of redevelopment view and value those sites. Winter (2013, 398) argued that ‘to grapple with the complexities of heritage, we need to move beyond the traditional disciplines and the fragmentation of knowledge practices, which typically create isolated and competing investigations of these issues’. This author would agree and suggest that engagement with both the academic and practical disciplines of heritage, planning and real estate would contribute to and benefit from these discussions, particularly around the types of values identified by practitioners as these are often similar, as in the case of aesthetic value found in the three former asylums discussed in this article. This would enable a wider conversation about what happens to our built environment to take place.

Equally, additional research into other types of heritage-building redevelopment could be undertaken to assess how these compare and contrast with each other, particularly in the case of negatively perceived places, in order to identify trends across types. This is where this research starts to open up these discussions and offers something new from existing literature as it seeks to look across stakeholder types within redevelopments. It is hoped that this work can begin to bring together the stakeholders involved, such as planners, developers, real estate and heritage professionals who, whilst they come into contact with each other during the redevelopment process, often do not collaborate or work together outside of this process. In doing so, this would challenge each of the disciplines involved, whether academics or practitioners, to be more self-reflective, and critical about their standpoint in examining why they hold the views they do and what effect this has on the developments on which they are working. It would also challenge policymakers to consider how potentially competing views are managed through the process of redevelopment.

Acknowledgements

I would like to acknowledge the AHRC for funding the PhD research (number 1345485) from which this research formed part. Also Kevin Muldoon-Smith, Liz Laycock and Charlene Cross for their comments on the draft versions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the AHRC under Grant number 1345485

Notes on contributors

Carolyn Gibbeson

Carolyn Gibbeson is an Assistant Professor in Real Estate at Northumbria University. Her research explores how practical everyday decisions on the built environment are affected by people’s attachments, views and opinions. She is particularly interested in the resilience of the historic built environment and how the past affects our future decisions. Areas of interest include country houses and medical real estate. Prior to joining Northumbria she taught for seven years on Built Environment courses at Sheffield Hallam University. Before joining academia she worked as a commercial surveyor in public and private organisations.