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By Ingrid Spencer

For New York City–based architect and photographer Christopher Payne, the only thing depressing about spending days at a time alone with his large-format camera photographing abandoned and decrepit state psychiatric hospitals is that they’ll soon be gone. Often majestic in scale and built on self-sustaining farms where patients took part in working the land, dozens of these hospitals once had a purpose that, according to Payne, was much less creepy than movies and TV would have us believe. “These buildings were designed with optimism,” says Payne, “with craftsmanship, with the idea that the state had a responsibility to help people with mental illness. To see these landmarks demolished … it doesn’t make sense. Greed is behind it, and a lack of vision.”

www.chrispaynephoto.com Click for a slide show of images. Above: Buffalo State Hospital.

Creating buildings may be Payne’s day job (he works for Studio Kenji in New York), but photography is what drives him. Just looking at his startling images, some in black and white, some in color, it’s easy to see that Payne is a preservationist at heart, despite the fact that he hates the term. “What bums me is the general apathy and feeling of helplessness in the architectural community,” he says. “Most young architects are only interested in what’s new and hot. To be concerned with preserving the past risks being labeled a square.” Payne admits that others may have a more objective take on the topic, but because he is driven to document, he feels quite in the middle of it. “No matter what quality my photos are,” he says, “they are no replacement for what’s lost.”

Payne’s passion for photographing obscure building types began when, in 1997, he started taking pictures of New York’s substations—the power stations that ran the New York subway systems until the 1980s, when they became obsolete. His photos, along with histories and plans, became a book in 2002 (New York’s Forgotten Substations: The Power Behind the Subway, Princeton Architectural Press). His photos of hospitals will also become a book, complete with plans. Payne has a knack for getting into these dying building types, without artifice. “I tell the truth,” he says, “and the officials in charge often feel the same way I do. These buildings are icons of a welfare state—institutions created to protect and take care of people. They’re like castles, and I’m just one step ahead of the wrecking ball.”