31–40 of 497 posts
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”.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 :)
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?
In his book "Discipline and Punish", Foucault argues that in the establishment of the modern prison, the mission of imprisonment shifted from punishing those who were imprisoned to reforming and disciplining them to become better citizens. The same organizing principles of command and control developed for "modern" prisons were applied to the "modern" school as well. I thought the game eerily demonstrated how similar prisons and schools look to one another. Both kinds of buildings are designed to limit access to the building and also egress.
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
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
The place has long since been demolished; I remember it from personal experience as a shopping centre where all the shops had closed, and as a car park where nobody parked.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Foucault is explicitly referring to norms of behavior, not the shapes of buildings: - regular chronologies - forced labour - authorities of surveillance and registration
Here's the chapter of his book about the nature of certain building styles and shapes being important here...
https://foucault.info/documents/foucault.disciplineAndPunish...
Also interesting to talk about, are the ways that the people influenced by Foucault talk about space, area, and architectural design. Deleuze and Guattari had a whole lot to say about all of those topics, and they are one of the principle reasons for Foucaults fame...
A fun anecdote from my youth near a US seaboard was that our elementary and middle school buildings were designed by the same person who designed a few prisons around the area. When I bounced around cities later in life, I was surprised at how many of my peers said the same thing as a conversation piece. Maybe they used the same governmental bidding process. "Needed: a building. One food preparation and eating area.…
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.
As other people have commented, space for windows is crucial. (And, at least 2 of the pictures had identifying words in different languages) I scored 10 out of 10 and the game bounced me out.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Foucault is explicitly referring to norms of behavior, not the shapes of buildings: - regular chronologies - forced labour - authorities of surveillance and registration