NOTES
ON PRISON
IT TAKES FEW SECONDS TO LOAD THE DIAGRAM
05–05–25
In the 1960s, sociologist and anthropologist Erving Goffman developed the concept of the total institution – a place that forms enforced communities, isolated within a facility with no possibility of external relations. All daily activities take place inside the complex, and the community is regulated both by internal orders and bureaucratic rules, as well as by architecture and spatial layout. 2 Professor of Law Herman Schwartz simultaneously points out that the removal of privacy is a functional prerequisite of the prison. 3 How, then, is space constructed so that it allows neither privacy nor collectivity? Both experiences take on dual forms here – one resistant, parasitic on the system and learning to exploit its shortcomings, and one forced, inscribed into typology with the aim of manipulating people so they do not deviate from prescribed frameworks.
The ways in which prisons have historically dealt with privacy and collectivity reveal their ideological intentions – for example, the experiments with isolation in the 19th century (the Philadelphia model), where isolation was intended to prompt reflection on one’s actions and moral transformation of the imprisoned. Over the course of the 20th century, the relationship to the individual CELL shifts globally (strictness and TIME in the cell are regulated according to state objectives regarding the incarcerated). From individual cases, we can distill spatial arrangements that, according to Western (American and Anglo-Saxon) theory, are designed to prevent organization. 4 This intention could also be interpreted as a response to the revolutionary transformations of the 1960s and the countercultural movements that emphasized collective resistance and the support of marginalized people, species, and nature (e.g. anti-racist movements, second-wave feminism, environmentalism, the New Left, queer movements, etc.). The solidarity and power these groups represented were entirely undesirable for the emerging prison-industrial complex.
Prisons were not built as panopticons per se, but the right to surveillance remained a key aspect of their design. Compositionally, the H-shaped layout proved advantageous, where the sidelines of the letter form corridors flanked by cells on both sides. The central, connecting line houses the administrative apparatus. 5 This model provides large accommodation capacity while simultaneously preventing collective gathering – it works with narrow spaces, where a frontal arrangement prevails, and conversation is thus conditioned by spatial hierarchy. The most characteristic and literal example in European history is HM Prison Maze in Northern Ireland, which the British government used to intern Irish republicans fighting for independence and unification, and which became a symbol of state repression during the conflict known as The Troubles; the most famous collective-individual action being the 1981 hunger strike. 6 A turning point was also the implementation of CCTV systems inside the prison, which significantly altered the spatial dynamics of the facility and limited the possibility of assembly even in places not constantly monitored by guards.
In the second half of the 20th century, government budget cuts in the United States led to the reduction or complete closure of spaces for meeting and discussion. 7 Examples include classrooms for educational programs and sporthalls. What remains is typically a single cultural or communal room where televisions have been installed, intended more to promote silence than dialogue. A completely different perspective emerges in spaces such as communal washrooms, where gatherings occur involuntarily and the incarcerated must expose themselves and perform private activities collectively. 8 Extreme forms of enforced isolation and severing of ties both inside and outside the prison include (1) solitary confinement and (2) transfers to facilities far from the person’s permanent residence. 9
And yet, as in the case of SOUNDSCAPES, the incarcerated often manage to find islands of resistance for collective dissent. 10 One such site is flat rooftops, which allow large numbers of people to gather in a broad assembly. The rooftop position offers a view beyond the prison in all directions (theoretically) and allows the collective to communicate with the world beyond the enclosing wall. An emblematic example is the globally known Attica prison uprising in 1971. 11 Even a sloped roof can embody a strategy designed to preempt the possibility of gathering within the prison grounds. This interpretation was confirmed by the management of the Pankrác Remand Prison during a site visit, when they pointed out, for instance, that even the upper edge of the perimeter wall is sloped to make climbing more difficult. 12
Source NY Daily News
An illustrative effort to transform prison space before its final closure includes not only the immediate closure of solitary cells, and the opening of educational, therapeutic, and treatment programs, but also, for example, financial support for the incarcerated community’s networks – groups that would travel into the prison and create a support system growing through the cracks in the prison-industrial complex. In public space, it is crucial to support the creation of places where communities can gather and where discussion and protest can occur.
1 Angela Y. Davis, Freedom Is A Constant Struggle, London 2022, p. 52.
2 Erving Goffman, Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates, New York 1961, p. 4.
3 Dominique Moran, Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration, London 2018, pp. 31–32.
4 Clément Petitjean, Prisons and Class Warfare: Interview with Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Historical Materialism, 2018. Available at:, https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/prisons-and-class-warfare/, accessed on 29 Apr 2025.
5 Ibidem.
6 Louise Purbrick, H Blocks: An Architecture of the Conflict in and about Northern Ireland, London 2023.
7 Angela Y. Davis, Jsou věznice překonané?, Prague 2021, p. 62.
8 See note 3.
9 Stephen Wilson, Unsettled People, Inquest, 2024. Available at: https://inquest.org/unsettled-people/, accessed on 15 Mar 2025.
10 Joël Charbit – Gwenola Ricordeau, La prison, un espace de résistances et de mobilisations, Champ Pénal/Penal Field XX, 2020, no. 1. Available at: https://journals.openedition.org/champpenal/12041#tocto1n4, accessed on 5 May 2025.
11 Orisanmi Burton, Prisons Are War: The Long Attica Revolt and Abolition Internationalism, The Funambulist, 2024, no. 52. Available at: https://thefunambulist.net/magazine/prison-uprisings/prisons-are-war-the-long-attica-revolt-and-abolition-internationalism, accessed on 5 May 2025.
12 The author of the article took part in the tour together with students from the Faculty of Architecture at the Czech Technical University.
Abolitionism represents a transformative vision of society that replaces carceral and policing institutions with collective care, de-escalation, and nonviolent conflict resolution aimed at reconciliation and reparative justice. (1) A sense of solidarity and collective care is fundamentally incompatible with frameworks rooted in violence and punitive approaches. (2)
One concrete vision for reimagining society as a caring archipelago of communities is the development of community kitchens – whether as part of experiments with cooperative or other alternative housing models, or in the form of neighborhood-based shared kitchens and communal dining spaces. See for example Kafkárna for more!
ADÉLA VAVŘÍKOVÁ
THEORETICAL TEXT
The project’s political dimension contributes to the discourse on prison abolition, while also serving as a professional appeal to the architectural community: to learn to recognise spaces designed for oppression and violence, and to refuse further participation in their production. Instead, it calls for the use of imagination as a design tool, encouraging the creation of a society grounded in care and social equality.
At the top of the webpage, readers will find (1) a list of frequently asked questions related to prison abolition, (2) a glossary of terms, and (3) a manual explaining the structure of the online archive, including its categories, tags, and entries.