Prison Architecture
The evolving architecture of prisons maps out the changing attitudes towards crime and punishment, ranging from the 19th century panopticon design to contemporary modular design.
Famously, the first panopticon design was the product of Jeremy Bentham, where all prisoners are kept within the line of view and thus better observed and more efficiently organised. Architecture became empowered with underlying theory and served to reinforce contemporary attitudes to law enforcement.
The web resources in this section pertain to the renovation of the Koepelgevangenis (Panopticon Prison) in Arnhem, The Netherlands. This project was undertaken by the OMA firm in 1979, led by Rem Koolhaas. The challenge was to adopt a building to current penitentiary practice, yet allowing for the fact that a particular ideology and approach permeates the entire structure.
