As part of the Mantovarchitettura2025 program, the evocative spaces of the former Church of San Cristoforo in Mantua hosted the exhibition “Beyond the Wall. The City Imagined by Italy’s Former Psychiatric Hospitals”, organized by the Mantua Campus of Politecnico di Milano in collaboration with the Amici di Palazzo Te association.
The exhibition explored the theme of spaces of care, focusing in particular on psychiatric institutions, which have long reflected broader cultural attitudes toward mental health, power, and society’s relationship with the “other.” Through drawings, graffiti, and sculptures created by patients in psychiatric hospitals such as San Lazzaro (Reggio Emilia), San Niccolò (Siena), Volterra, and Trieste, the exhibition revealed an architectural and artistic imagination born within spaces of confinement—an imagination capable of resisting the institutional dynamics of control.
Featured artists included N.O.F.4, Giuseppe Righi, Paris Morgiani, and ZAP. The exhibition closes with MarcoCavallo, the blue papier-mâché horse built in 1973 inside the Trieste asylum, which symbolically broke through the walls of confinement and became a powerful icon of psychiatric reform.
The exhibition marks the beginning of a broader research and reflection process. It will be followed by an international conference and a working group in the autumn, aimed at rethinking the future of former psychiatric hospitals and preserving the memory of these historically significant places.