The last sentence in the above quotation proved prophetic regarding China's accommodation of psychiatric space. In this chapter psychiatric space refers to the intentional use of architecture to shape therapeutic outcome. More than 100 years have passed since China first built a separate space to house the insane. Also known as madhouses, insane asylums or psychiatric hospitals, knowledge of these built environments have been based on scholarship focused on European and American architecture than China. Unfortunately, China's insane asylums have been over-looked in the literature despite their significant role in the history of psychiatry.

This chapter responds to the paucity of research on insane asylums beyond the Western context. The aim is to examine linkages between Western and Eastern ideas on psychiatric space vis-à-vis China's first insane asylum – The John G. Kerr Refuge for the Insane.