Paint it Black, or just not white

February 18, 2006 2:33 PM

Why are mental institutions and psychiatric wards always painted stark white? It seems like that environment would only precipitate more insanity.

At least from my experience, pure white walls have always been unsettling. I undestand why hospitals are stark white, so they can tell when things are dirty and prevent infections, but a mental institution would probably want some color on the walls. Is it a carry-over from hospitals, or is there some theory to this I might be missing?

posted by destro to Health & Fitness (19 answers total)

But... hospitals aren't stark white. In my experience in recent years, aside from operating rooms they seem to be a riot of mauve.
posted by scody at 2:38 PM on February 18, 2006

huh. dunno why I put "aren't" in small letters rather than italics there. weird.
posted by scody at 2:39 PM on February 18, 2006

Best answer: They aren't always white. The one psychiatric ward interior I have seen (was not on the end of treatment) was very attractively decorated in a variety of muted colours and well decorated with artwork and plants etc.
posted by fire&wings at 2:39 PM on February 18, 2006

I think it depends largely on whether it's a public or private institution. Public (government funded) places are the most stark in my opinon. Five gallon buckets of white paint are much cheaper, and white is easier to maintain.
posted by kimdog at 2:59 PM on February 18, 2006

Is your experience entirely deriven from movies?
posted by jmgorman at 2:59 PM on February 18, 2006

If you browse some of the abandoned-building photography websites, you'll see that many of them were painted in colors that...well, they seem worse than white for insanity, I think. The whole Baker's Pink fiasco may have nudged people away from color again for a while, but it seems like there was at least some decoration going on in many cases.
posted by cobaltnine at 3:00 PM on February 18, 2006

Is your experience entirely deriven from movies?

Exactly what I was going to say. You'd be surprised at how normal those hospitals look.
posted by apple scruff at 3:01 PM on February 18, 2006

This was not true of the New Hampshire Stae Hospital back in the late 1950s. I visited a patient and was startled by the clashing purples and greens and pinks of the walls in the visitors area.
posted by Raybun at 3:36 PM on February 18, 2006

Response by poster: most of the hospitals i've been in are stark white or sometimes pink. i'd actually say white is harder to maintain since marks show up more and thus requiring more layers of paint.
posted by destro at 3:39 PM on February 18, 2006

Best answer: This page says "Another place we see green used is in the 'green room' of theaters or television studios because nervous performers are quieted by the color. This is also the reason surgeons wear green scrubs. Hospital waiting rooms, psychiatric wards, and prison cells often paint their walls green for the same effect." (Perhaps AskMe's green is the reason we're a little more friendly here than the Blue or the Grey.)

In fact, this came up in conversation with a friend the other day (institutions, not AskMe), and she mentioned Celdon Green as being typical.
posted by ArsncHeart at 3:57 PM on February 18, 2006

I think the "white walls" thing is largely because of movies, although I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions. That being said, I believe white is used because it looks sterile, clean and clinical.
posted by frogan at 4:09 PM on February 18, 2006

My sister is a "nut nurse" and most of her wards employ colour therapy to make sure the patients are comfortable in their environment. Not a lot of white used but plenty pastels, greens and light blues etc.
posted by brautigan at 4:10 PM on February 18, 2006

ArsncHeart - I think that the main reason scrubs are green is so blood spatters don't stand out as much (although the calming effect probably plays into it as well).
posted by sluggo at 4:20 PM on February 18, 2006

I've never seen a green "green room." In fact, they haven't been green for most of history. (Michael Quinion is an authoratative source, unlike "wiseGeek," which is not.)
posted by Mo Nickels at 4:31 PM on February 18, 2006

Response by poster: if what everybody's saying is true, maybe i haven't seen enough hospitals in my day (good thing in a sense).
posted by destro at 4:53 PM on February 18, 2006

Another consideration is that movies tend to use old and closed facilities as locations. They were often built 50 to 100 years ago so they reflect a completely different way of thinking.
posted by smackfu at 6:11 PM on February 18, 2006

Likewise, most places I've seen have been ugly but non-white colours, however in the cases of using white, I would have thought that white would be used not to look clean and sterile as already suggested, but so that staff can more easily see when and where it's not clean, and thus be more effective at keeping it clean and sterile. The opposite of like how most home carpet designs are intended to make dirt hard to see.
posted by -harlequin- at 7:45 PM on February 18, 2006

I thought the standard soothing institutional color scheme was green -- maybe that was a 1950s thing?

My elementary school had the usual pale green upper - dark green lower walls that I believe you see in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest but it's been a while, could be my overactive imagination.

I do remember hearing of studies in 1960s claiming that pink light settled down violent people.

But the walls were defintely sterile white in the "12 Monkeys" asylum scenes.
posted by Rash at 2:37 PM on February 19, 2006

This is a movie convention and not reality. I've been inside several psychiatric wards and all were done in soothing pastel type colors.
posted by katyggls at 5:26 PM on February 21, 2006