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School or Prison

schoolprison.com

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Re: School or Prison

#11

Post by paulpauper »

cyberbanjo wrote: post #4

Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons? Michel Foucault

this is because tall, rectangular buildings maximize volume to surface area, whether a hospital school or prison. It is not a form of social control or domination. it is more efficient this way. A one-story hospital would be prohibitively expensive to build in an urban area, and it is not like healthcare is not already too expensive.

Re: School or Prison

#12

Post by issamehh »

dijit wrote: post #8
noncoml wrote: post #3

What’s the point being made here? That if you take a picture of a building from a specific angle it’s difficult to tell the function of the building?

Going to be honest though. School (at least mine) functioned very similarly to a prison, in fact, most prisons had better conditions than my secondary school. There is a simple fact that schools can be glorified daycare so that workers can offload the burden of childcare. For this purpose, a prison makes sense. Despite not being the most humane considering the kids didn’t do any crime worthy of rehabilitation.

I can't even look at school as not being a prison. It's one of the only places I've had the displeasure to be denied basic rights such as going to use a toilet.

Re: School or Prison

#14

Post by jhardy54 »

paulpauper wrote: post #11
cyberbanjo wrote: post #4

Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons? Michel Foucault

this is because tall, rectangular buildings maximize volume to surface area, whether a hospital school or prison. It is not a form of social control or domination. it is more efficient this way. A one-story hospital would be prohibitively expensive to build in an urban area, and it is not like healthcare is not already too expensive.

> tall, rectangular buildings maximize volume to surface area,

I imagine that you mean that tall buildings maximize ground area, and that most property is rectangular.

The way to maximize volume to surface area is to build spheres, or cubes if you're forced to remain rectilinear, but tall buildings optimize for ground area.

Re: School or Prison

#15

Post by Hamuko »

dijit wrote: post #8
noncoml wrote: post #3

What’s the point being made here? That if you take a picture of a building from a specific angle it’s difficult to tell the function of the building?

Going to be honest though. School (at least mine) functioned very similarly to a prison, in fact, most prisons had better conditions than my secondary school. There is a simple fact that schools can be glorified daycare so that workers can offload the burden of childcare. For this purpose, a prison makes sense. Despite not being the most humane considering the kids didn’t do any crime worthy of rehabilitation.

I remember hearing that my school was actually modelled after a prison. Don't know if it was actually true, but it sure looked like it, since it had this large, multi-storey hall with classrooms all around it.

A bit like https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d3/Kilmainh...

Re: School or Prison

#16

Post by finnh »

issamehh wrote: post #12
dijit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Going to be honest though. School (at least mine) functioned very similarly to a prison, in fact, most prisons had better conditions than my secondary school. There is a simple fact that schools can be glorified daycare so that workers can offload the burden of childcare. For this purpose, a prison makes sense. Despite not being the most humane considering the kids didn’t do any crime worthy of rehabilitation.

I can't even look at school as not being a prison. It's one of the only places I've had the displeasure to be denied basic rights such as going to use a toilet.

Also one of the only places with a nontrivial amount of people who would lie about needing to go to the bathroom, many times per day, just to be disruptive and/or to get out of class.

aka "this is why we can't have nice things", juvenile edition :)

Re: School or Prison

#19

Post by jclulow »

philwelch wrote: post #10
joe_the_user wrote: post #2

It's part of the larger situation that the buildings created by large bureaucracies all look about the same.

It’s an architectural style called “brutalism”, which has the predominant aesthetic of “a boot stamping on a human face forever”.

I mean, not really? I think you're projecting the behaviour of the USSR (or whatever) onto the architectural style. From an aesthetic perspective, brutalism can be surprisingly pleasing -- especially if you throw in some trees: https://twitter.com/Karl_poyzer/status/1246511600300896257

Re: School or Prison

#20

Post by rmrfstar »

paulpauper wrote: post #11
cyberbanjo wrote: post #4

Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labour, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penality? Is it surprising that prisons resemble factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, which all resemble prisons? Michel Foucault

this is because tall, rectangular buildings maximize volume to surface area, whether a hospital school or prison. It is not a form of social control or domination. it is more efficient this way. A one-story hospital would be prohibitively expensive to build in an urban area, and it is not like healthcare is not already too expensive.

I think the excerpt more about the artificial regimentation and the arbitrary authority than the shape of the building.
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