Psychiatric Hospital Beverin

In Cazis, where the ‘Versorgungsanstalt Asyl Realta’ opened in 1919 as a sprawling, symmetrically laid-out complex of pavilions set in the woods, the current Beverin Psychiatric Clinic, one of the two acute psychiatric hospitals in the canton of Graubünden, developed over the decades. After around 80 years of operation, the complex, designed by the architect Otto Manz, no longer met the requirements of modern psychiatric care, prompting the Cantonal Department of Justice, Police, and Health to launch a public architectural competition in 1994 for its comprehensive refurbishment. The key requirement was that the historic building fabric should, as far as possible, be preserved and put to sensible further use, whilst any extensions had to be subordinate to the original symmetrical layout of the ‘Waldsiedlung’.

Planning for the comprehensive refurbishment began in 1995. On 1 December 1996, the voters of Graubünden approved a commitment credit of 49.6 million Swiss francs (gross) with 78 per cent voting in favour, and just seven months later, on 9 July 1997, the ground-breaking ceremony took place. The works were carried out in several phases between 1997 and 2003, with individual areas of the hospital gradually becoming available for use from 1999 onwards, whilst normal hospital operations continued throughout the construction period.

In addition to the above-ground refurbishment and extension works on the individual pavilions, the project also included a complete overhaul of the underground infrastructure: Since then, a new, accessible tunnel system has handled both the vehicular supply and waste disposal for the patient buildings and all utility connections such as water, sewage, electricity, and district heating, a solution that largely isolated the sensitive hospital operations above ground from the construction work.

With the completion of construction and a large public celebration on 12 June 2004, the comprehensively refurbished Beverin Clinic was handed over to the public, a project comprising several refurbishment schemes that integrated a contemporary psychiatric infrastructure into Otto Manz’s historic ensemble without compromising its original urban design concept.