PANOPTICON

Panopticon

Panopticon

Panopticon Theory

The Panopticon is a type of prison architecture designed by the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. The objective of the panoptic structure is to enable an individual to observe all prisoners without them may not know if they are observed, thus creating a "sense of omniscience invisible" among inmates.

In a 1965 article, the American historian Gertrude Himmelfarb complained of "lack of interest" of his colleagues regarding the project of Jeremy Bentham to build a prison known as the "Panopticon". She noted that the documents on this project that day went largely unnoticed. Foucault published a book ten years later, in which Panopticon is an important part. It was followed by a number of researches by other scholars on the Panopticon. Robin Evans has tackled the project with an architectural standpoint, Sean McConville from the perspective of criminal history, while Janet Semple published a book in 1993, trying to place it in a broader philosophical and political context in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries (Stanziani, 2009, pp. 715-741).

Our goal here is not quite the same. Our discussion of the Panopticon will be divided into two main parts. First, we get on details of Bentham's prison project to explore how the Panopticon's description is given by Foucault, and in particular its relevance to the design of the philosopher French of the "docile body" design that considers the prisoner as a passive victim of a state punitive omniscient and omnipotent. A second part will focus on project that benefits from Bentham in Britain in the years that followed. The Panopticon will never see the day, the biggest regret of its inventor. However, the governments of the day, while categorically rejecting the proposals of the philosopher, will eventually build a prison for convicts to Millbank, on the right bank of the Thames, near Westminster. The construction of the building began in 1812 and first held in 1816 will be admitted. Once finished, the prison will be able to house 1,200 prisoners, making it therefore the largest penal institution in Europe. Millbank also embodies continuity with the original plan of Bentham. This second part will focus on therefore somehow realizing - albeit partial - of the panopticon at Millbank. We will try to finally arrive at conclusions about the usefulness of the concept of "docile body" eddy when the prison left the drawing board of architect-philosopher and realized in bricks and mortar.

Jeremy Bentham gives the following description of his plan for a Panopticon or "Home Inspection" in a pamphlet published in 1798: “The circular building: an iron cage, glass, lantern glass, the size of Ranelagh - prisoners in their cells occupy the circumference- the officers and senior staff. By blinds and other stratagems, inspectors are hidden in the sight of prisoners. The whole building can be monitored without having to change much or, if necessary, without changing everything in his views.

These lines contain both the fundamental architectural principles of the project a big round of independent monitoring, surrounded by a ...