The Richardson Olmsted Campus in Buffalo, New York, United States, was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1986.

[2][3] The site was designed by the American architect Henry Hobson Richardson in concert with the famed landscape team of Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux in the late 1800s, incorporating a system of treatment for people with mental illness developed by Dr. Thomas Story Kirkbride known as the Kirkbride Plan.

Over the years, as mental health treatment changed and resources were diverted, the buildings and grounds began a slow deterioration.

On June 24, 1986, the former Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane was added to the National Historic Landmark registry.

The remaining buildings have been stabilized by the Richardson Center Corporation, with a plan by new developer Douglas Jemal to complete restoration.

Nichol's request was approved, and towns across Western New York began to enter bids to become the home of the new asylum.

The City of Buffalo promised to supply the future asylum with 100 years of free drinking water, and its location in a rural setting close to a bustling downtown was ideal for the Kirkbride Plan.

Kirkbride had called for a patient population of around 300, but Buffalo physician Dr. John P. Gray (who was overseeing the project), increased that number to about 600.

On November 15, 1880, the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane admitted patients for the first time, although only the eastern wards had been completed (the western side would not be finished until 1895).

Six years later in 1933, part of the Olmsted-designed green space (known as the South Lawn), was paved over to create a parking lot.

In 2006, the Richardson Center Corporation, a non-profit dedicated to the preservation of the campus, gained control of the property and completed initial stabilization.

The Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane, the largest commission of Richardson's career, marked the advent of his characteristic Romanesque Revival style.

Until 2019, an original Silver Maple also stood in front of the east wing of the Buffalo Psychiatric Center property.

Before this movement, the mentally ill were often housed in almshouses and jails, and were often subjected to archaic practices like bloodletting, isolation, and restraintment.

While undoubtedly influenced by the treatment of the mentally ill in Europe, some historians believe that asylums in America grew out of the Jacksonian Era.

Reformers like Dorothea Dix began to push for more funding and legislation aimed at creating mental health asylums across the United States.

Dix travelled across both the United States and Europe, advocating for the importance of asylums and bringing the issue to the forefront of the American consciousness.

Later struck down by President Franklin Pierce, this bill would have set aside ten million acres of federal land for the construction of mental health facilities.

Dix may have been unsuccessful, but her efforts directly correlated to the construction of 32 mental health hospitals across the United States.

At the conclusion of the American Civil War in 1865, a renewed focus on the construction of mental health facilities swept across America.

The asylum was intended to provide refuge from everyday life, and the environment a patient was in was just as important as the medical treatment they were receiving.

In adherence to the Kirkbride Plan, the Richardson Olmsted Campus (Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane) consists of a central administrative tower and five pavilions or wards progressively set back on each side, for eleven buildings total, all connected by short curved two-story corridors.

This change in vernacular illustrated the shifting view on patient treatment and the overall declining stigma placed on mental health.

[clarification needed][8][9][10] The Preservation Coalition of Erie County (renamed "Preservation Buffalo Niagara" in October 2008) filed a lawsuit resulting in New York State establishing the Richardson Center Corporation in 2006 to rehabilitate the site and the State committing $100 million towards rehabilitation.

[11] Perimeter fencing and lighting were installed and a Peace Officer was hired to conduct regular patrols and prevent and deter further crime at the complex.

As of summer 2023, planning continues for the construction of the Lipsey Architecture Center Buffalo at the Richardson Olmsted Campus.

Lizzie D. Cottier surreptitiously wrote a novel, The Right Spirit,[20] in 1885 while committed to the Buffalo State Asylum.

[21] In 1983 a portion of a ground floor hallway and one hospital room were prepared to appear as a maternity ward and used as a location for The Natural, where the character Roy Hobbs, as played by Robert Redford, was shown recovering from internal injuries.

[citation needed] Mount Massive Asylum, the main setting for the 2013 horror game Outlast, was modeled after the Richardson Olmsted Complex.

[22] Architectural plans and drawings, and internal records from the Buffalo State Hospital are found in several places.