The subject of Donald Urquhart’s new work is iconic. The long central corridor at Dykebar Psychiatric Hospital embodied the myopic vision underpinning the architectural temperament of the institution. The corridor once posed as the aorta, the see through double doors mediated its vacillating existence. The brutal perspective, redolent of Sam Fuller’s Shock Corridor, left you to doubt everything.

In choosing to engage with this space, Urquhart’s intention was not only to attune the experience but also to confront the underlying institution. In doing so, Donald has transformed the corridor. It is now clearly defined, a temporal axis that supports four wards, a shop, two dayrooms and an atrium.

finished corridor.
Corridor prior to redevelopment

In the making of this space, the artist has sought to reduce physiological and psychological barriers to going outside. Donald’s reductive landscape uses the building blocks of nature to abstract the essential. The umbilical reality infiltrates perception, simulating the natural environment.

The three larch heartwood beams provide seating to punctuate the journey, places to recollect. These warm, solid states present reassurance to the gravity of being.

The light of the sky filters through translucent blue letterbox glass. The cool rays are absorbed by a subtle palette of stone, sky and tree in contrast to the other untouched décor in the hospital defined with an intimidating and claustrophobic dusky pink.

To the side, expanses of white opal glass simultaneously focus and diffuse light to exalt the liminal, here the lamina obscures an underscored garden, screening territory, averting gaze. Urquhart has also introduced private areas into the adjoining day rooms; single curtains of dense white glass create a secluded penumbra whilst strategically drawing the eye outside.

Above, the plotted canopy recedes equidistant to the mind’s eye aiding the erosion of repetitious thought patterns by echoing a sense of evolving organic structures, here by uprooting the inherent architectural and enforcing a decay of the intense perspective.

Embedded underfoot, horizontal shadows resonate. The floor, mapped uniform to the afternoon sun anticipates solar alignment and conjectures a synchronous illumination. The framing of time a hallmark in Urquhart’s work.



An architectural meander impedes the divergence of parallel lines and narrows the width of passage in preparation to enter or emerge from the atrium. The staged narrative presents a dramatic interplay of the spatial, light and dark.

The minimal aesthetic subtly accords with the clinical nature of the hospital. The corridor, treated by Urquhart as an integral part of people’s recovery, now supports a salutogenic approach. Both these associations provide identification that relocates the function of the space and the integrity of the institution. The reductive processes have interrogated the meaning of the building and begun to reestablish its status.



The Corridor is not an isolated artwork it is one of two parallel capital arts projects. These both sit in wider context of Finding Space at Dykebar Hospital. Finding Space emerged through consultation with users of the hospital including staff, patients and visitors. It charters a holistic approach to the arts commissioning programme within the hospital.

Finding Space established an Environmental Development Group with representatives from within the hospital (Estates, Nursing, OT, Patients Council, Administration) and representatives with particular skills from outside the hospital (Environmental Psychologist, Architect, Artist, and Project Manager). It provides a tangible framework to address the complexities of introducing capital arts projects into a mental health care facility.

Findingspace.org provides detailed information about the projects and widens debate surrounding environmental development within a mental healthcare setting. Through these mechanisms the Finding Space framework encourages an interdisciplinary dialogue, the development of a model of artistic practice and the conceptual practice of the individual artist.



Donald’s research revealed an environment that enforced, interpreted and undermined relationships within the diverse community of users. The redevelopment of the corridor has taken place within transient and fragmented NHS structures. Architectural and building regulations, technical, clinical and practical requirements posed paradoxical and complex constraints.

The art transcends beyond the ethereal, and upon exposure demands a rigorous application to manage the impossible. Through realisation, Urquhart retains the vision and conceptual integrity of the work.

The artist defines and intercepts the boundaries, changing the relationships to space and environment, allowing the mapping of solutions to being, advocating the emergence of use or useful. What distils our egos?

Donald’s work exacerbates the truth by access of an arcane understanding. The redevelopment of the corridor has challenged its own use and perceptions of the transitional interstitial space within a mental healthcare facility. Donald Urquhart has created a new location within Dykebar Psychiatric Hospital.

Sarah Jackets. September 2007