The room of the other. From spaces of confinement to spaces of asylum freeing

The article investigates the enclosed space of asylum confinement and its transformations up to the opening advocated by the movements of contestation of institutionalized psychiatry. The history of former psychiatric hospital in Gorizia, where Franco Basaglia started the process of negation of the psychiatric institution, also through action on space, can help us read the stages of this transformation. An acknowledgment of the role of architecture differentiates him from Foucault (who however admires Basaglia’s experiments in Gorizia). The reading is carried on by analysing photographic documents, documentaries filmed in the park, and archive materials (texts and architectural drawings). Such materials show how Basaglia fostered a new idea of architecture devised to support forms of resistance against the normalization imposed by the institution – but also by contemporary society. Brand new places enabling their residents/dwellers to find their own meaning in the place where they live.