Joris Katkevicius - Thesis - Presentation Prison Desing After Second World War in USA and Western Europe

Prison design after second world war
in USA and Western Europe

POLITECNICO DI MILANO
Scuola: Architettura e Società
Corso di studio: Scienze dell’Architettura
BA thesis: Prison Desing after Second World War in USA and Western Europe
Student: Joris Katkevicius (764243)

Supervisor: Emilio Faroldi
Co-supervisor: Luigi Cocchiarella
Date of appeal 23/09/2013 AA.2012/2013

PART 1:
Introduction
The architectural realization of penal ideas
POLITECNICO DI MILANO BA thesis: Prison Desing after Second World War in USA and Western Europe Supervisor: Emilio Faroldi
Scuola: Architettura e Società Student: Joris Katkevicius (764243) Co-supervisor: Luigi Cocchiarella
Corso di studio: Scienze dell’Architettura Date of appeal 23/09/2013 AA.2012/2013 2
Wall of Berlin.
Once, a city was divided in two parts.

One part became the Good Half, the other
part the Bad Half.
The inhabitants of the Bad Half began to
flock to the good part of the divided city, rapidly
swelling into an urban exodus.
If this situation had been allowed to con-
tinue forever, the population of the Good Half
would have doubled, while the Bad Half would
have turned into a ghost town.
Af ter all attempts to interrupt this undesir-
able migration had failed, the authorities of
the bad part made desperate and savage use
of architecture: they built a wall around the
good part of the city, making it completely
inaccessible to their subjects.
The Wall was a masterpiece.
<...>
Extraxt from Rem Koolhaas‘ 1972 Architectural Association thesis (together with Madelon Vreisendorp, Elia Zenghelis, and Zoe Zenghelis).
Exodus, Or The Voluntary Prisoners Of Architecture.
Rem Koolhaas‘ 1972 Architectural Association thesis (together with Madelon Vreisendorp, Elia Zenghelis, and Zoe Zenghelis). Like in West Berlin at the time, the Wall becomes here a condition of freedom by self imprisonment.
Voluntarily segregated, people find shelter within the walls of a prison of metropolitan scale.
From the MOMA gallery label text:

These drawings come from a series of eighteen drawings, watercolors, and collages called Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture. The dense pictographic storyboard reflects Koolhaas’s earlier stints as journalist
and screenwriter and is intended to be read simultaneously as a factual and a fictional scenario for the contemporary metropolis.
The title of the project alludes to Cold War West Berlin, a restricted enclave encircled by a forbidding wall—in effect, a prison on the scale of a metropolis, and one in which people sought refuge voluntarily. Exodus proposes
a walled city in a long strip, with tall barriers that cut through London’s urban fabric — an intervention designed to create a new urban culture invigorated by architectural innovation and political subversion. Here Koolhaas and
his collaborators use collage to create vivid scenes of life within these visionary urban confines.
PART 2:
Case studies
Interesting cases, which clearly shows the ‘contemporary’ dinamic nature in prison design.
It not common to get inside the correctional institution, and there are very limitied resorces
on internet, so examples were mainly taken from architectural periodics and books. I hope
getting through the presented examples one can get a bit more clear vision about the
situation.
Restauration
What are we going to do with what is build? Can building type be adopted to another
usage? What are the possibilities for urban renovation if we say good bye to the old prison?
Shall prison be preserved as a reminiscence of authority ar be readopted to contemporary
life? Prison as a landmark in urban fabric, preserving strategies.
In the eye of the Panopticon
Renewal of Arnhem prison
KOEPEL PANOPTICON PRISON, NETHERLANDS, ARNHEM, 1980
This project evolved after a commission in 1979 to “study” the possible renovation of a Panopticon prison — one of the three ever built on the principle in its pure form: a circle
with the all-seeing “eye” of the observatory as its center. The 100 years old building had to be equipped “for at least another 50 years” and “to embody present day insights into the
treatment of prisoners...”
Rem Koolhaas, Renovation study of a Panoptical Prison, Arnhem, the Netherlands, 1979-1981, section and plan.
From left to right - plan of basement, plan of ground floor, plan of upper levels.
Diagramm of “expanding the public domain with
two intersecting streets and maintaining the current
surveillance system”.
Section.
Perspective view of restructuring plan.
Construction View of the antechamber from the director’s office.

schemes of the
project.
Additions and extentions
The Weare
The Weare is another example of an innovative solution to the problem

of providing the right type of accommodation in the right location at the
right time (Figure 8.2).
The Weare was used as a floating barracks during the Falklands

war, and was subsequently purchased by the New York Department of
Corrections for use as a rehabilitation centre for those involved in drug
crime. The Weare is a flat-bottomed barge, and its superstructure consists
of steel containers stacked on top of one another to provide five levels of
category C accommodation. It arrived in Portland Harbour on 13 March
1997, but there was no planning permission. The application had been
rejected at the beginning of February, mainly on the grounds that it would
be a blight to tourism. Fortunately the Department of the Environment
reviewed the matter very quickly, and planning permission was granted
at the end of March.
When comparing the Weare with traditional establishments, the sea

represents the foundations. The Weare’s foundations move - they are
capable of rising and falling up to six metres in certain weather conditions,
and the vessel can also move two metres forward and two metres aft,
two metres outwards and one metre in compression. Throughout all
these potential movements, the Weare must remain fully operational.
To allow this, all methods of access have been carefully designed and all The Weare, moored at Weymouth, Dorset, formerly used as a floating barracks. This
service connections are by means of flexible umbilical cords. The vessel provided an imaginative solution to an acute accommodation problem, and it is now popular
both as a prison and as a tourist attraction.
also has ballast and trim systems to keep her at the correct plane. The
ship is secured to the shore by ropes, and is also restrained by anchors. To
date she has withstood winds of 96 miles per hour.
The vessel is unique in that she has a 24-hour qualified marine crew on
board to ensure that the ship’s systems and moorings are kept within the
tolerances and at optimum performance. The crew has access to an on-
board weather station, the meteorological office and ship-to-shore radio.
It was discovered in New York that the vessel had been inadequately
mothballed, and consequently all the mechanical and electrical systems
had to be overhauled and recommissioned once it reached its berth in
Portland, and the fire precautions substantially upgraded to bring them
in line with UK standards.
Riots
On April Fools’ Day, in 1990, 300 prisoners filed into the chapel at Strangeways prison, Manchester, to attend
the Church of England service. They heard a sermon from a visiting Church Army preacher, and at 11am, the
prison’s chaplain, Noel Proctor, rose to continue the service.
What happened next was tape recorded, along with the sermon. The transcript of the tape reads thus:
Noel Proctor: “After that remarkable message that has ...”
A prisoner (later identified as Paul Taylor): “I would just like to say, right, that this man has just talked about
the blessing of the heart and how a hardened heart can be delivered. No it cannot, not with resentment, anger
and bitterness and hatred being instilled in people.”
(noise, over which) A prisoner: “Fuck your system, fuck your rules.”
Proctor: “Right lads, sit down.”
(More noise)
Proctor: “Right lads, down. Down. Come on, this is no way to carry on in God’s house.”
(More noise)
A prisoner: “Fuck your system.”
Proctor: “Right lads, sit down. This is completely out of order. Sit down.”
A prisoner: “Why is it [out of order]? It’s been waiting to happen forever. It will never change.”
Proctor: “Come on. This is terrible.”
(More noise; banging, shouting, cheering)
Proctor: “All of you who want to go back to your cells, go to the back of the church please.”
A prisoner: “What? You’re a fucking hypocrite, you.”
Proctor: “I’m trying to help you, to keep you.”
A prisoner: “Leave it, mate.”
(More noise until microphone goes dead)
Eric Allison
theguardian.com, Friday 1 April 2005 14.10 BST
Modernising Strangeways Prison
Woodhill Prison, Milton Keynes
Section throught Woodhil house

unit. The huge glazed wall and the
clearstory dominate the interior.
Woodhill is more spaciously landscaped and less close-knit than the PBDS prison. There is only
one point of entry to the site.
Woodhill: first-floor plan and ground-floor plan. On the first floor a two-way observation and
Woodhill Prison: plans and sections of a typical pair of single cells.
office area links cell blocks.
The complexity of the entrance block is highlighted by this maze of doors and rooms.
The chapel (centre) projects from the administration and amenities blocks. In the main visiting hall the huge scale will dwarf the inmates and their visitors. Three tiers of cells around the triangular atrium, with roof light above, the scale is Atrium wall: made of toughened policarbonate with patterned grilles.
accentuated by the massive roof construction.
Section and plan of cell
window.
Section through eaves.

Plan and external
elevation of cell window.
Structural plan at eaves.
Prison program
Strategies for corrections programming
Wisconsin Correctional Institution,
Fox Lake, Wis.; Curtis and Davis and Associated Architects and Engineers
Recent built prisons
Cell - A secure room, where inmates are temporarily held or reside, constructed of
materials which will prevent escape. The holding cell will generally include bench or bed
and plumbing fixtures. A housing cell will generally include bed (or bunk beds), desk (or
writing surface), storage unit, clothing hooks (breakaway type), plumbing fixtures, mirror,
light, and stool (or chair).
Prison of Brians
From a distance, little “about the Brians prison, nestling in its rural valley some way Topographical
outside Barcelona, reveals its function or the shape of its polygonal site. Instead of the plan of Brians
area.
usual multiples of semi-standardised units.plonked on the site, it is composed with care
around handsome courts and circulation areas to bed itself into .slope and setting. The
masterplan and most of the complex were designed and built by Esteve Bonell and Josep
Maria Gil. Working closely with them were the executive architects for the administration/
entrance building and main kitchen, Francesc Rius, and sports hall, Manel Brullet.
The client specified the method of surveillance and so it cannot be blamed on the
architect. But it draws attention to a problem foreign critics face with contemporary Spanish
architecture. For all its great aesthetic and symbolic strengths, it is usually somewhat lacking
in social and programmatic concerns. And then when these are present, but stipulated by
the authorities, aspects of them seem out of step with those applied elsewhere in the
developed world. Yet a crucial criterion in judging architecture (for older North Europeans,
often the crucial criterion) is the nature of the humanitarian vision that informs the design
and the quality of life that it fosters, within and without.
Plan of the lower level. Legend: 1Services building; 2 Entrance to public spaces; 3 Cultural area; 4 Gym, 5 Detention wings; 6 Medical
building; 7 Main access road; 8 High-security; 9 Wardens’ dwellings.
Sections A-A; B-B; C-C; D-D; E-E.
Viev of the peniteriary from the inside of one of the courtyards.
Plan of the upper level. Legend: 1 Administration building; 2 Entrance and visitors; 3 Reception and cultural area; 4 Service building;
5 Gym; 6 Detention wings; 7 Medical building; 8 High-security.
Central street and with surveillance tower beyond.
Ramp-hall seen
from bottom.
Patients court.
View of the
visitors’s centre
interior court.
End of exercise
yard and cell
cell block with
common room
oppening under
canopy on to
raised terrace.
View from
entrance of
sanitarium block of
ramping circulation
spine.
View from waiting

area of sanitarium
towards its
entrance.
PART 3:
Coclusions
My visual representation of Global Prison - Variant
Global Prison
So what are the future prisons to be? Is it possible to find a universal template for
correctional architecture? If prison population is still growing, where the people are going G.B.Piranesi - Campo Marzio (1963)
to dwell?
I wanted to propose a futuristic scenario, a kind of extension of Rem Koolhaas‘ 1972

Architectural Association thesis (together with Madelon Vreisendorp, Elia Zenghelis, and
Zoe Zenghelis), where the world is completely occupied by prisons, in a post post post
industrialization world which seemed to bring us a freedom.
I got inspiration by G.B.Piranesi - Campo Marzio (1963), Giambattista Nolli, and his maps,
and thesis collages of Rem Koolhaas’ (together with Madelon Vreisendorp, Elia Zenghelis,
and Zoe Zenghelis) 1972.
Detail of Roma map, Giambattista Nolli
Global Prison
...Prisonpopulation was growing and law was getting more strict. In the end public space merged with private one, and became just a spaces of crime. Exclamation for an Authority
is lost in the only building type remaining - Prison. Everyone survey each other, everyone is a Prisoner...
Thank You!!

Joris Katkevicius - Thesis - Presentation Prison Desing After Second World War in USA and Western Europe

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Joris Katkevicius - Thesis - Presentation Prison Desing After Second World War in USA and Western Europe

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Prison design after second world war

in USA and Western Europe

Student: Joris Katkevicius (764243)

Date of appeal 23/09/2013 AA.2012/2013

Once, a city was divided in two parts.

From the MOMA gallery label text:

KOEPEL PANOPTICON PRISON, NETHERLANDS, ARNHEM, 1980

Perspective view of restructuring plan.

Construction View of the antechamber from the director’s office.

The Weare is another example of an innovative solution to the problem

The Weare was used as a floating barracks during the Falklands

When comparing the Weare with traditional establishments, the sea

Noel Proctor: “After that remarkable message that has ...”

Proctor: “Right lads, sit down.”

A prisoner: “Fuck your system.”

Proctor: “Come on. This is terrible.”

(More noise; banging, shouting, cheering)

A prisoner: “What? You’re a fucking hypocrite, you.”

Proctor: “I’m trying to help you, to keep you.”

A prisoner: “Leave it, mate.”

(More noise until microphone goes dead)

Section throught Woodhil house

Section through eaves.

Structural plan at eaves.

Sections A-A; B-B; C-C; D-D; E-E.

Viev of the peniteriary from the inside of one of the courtyards.

View from waiting

My visual representation of Global Prison - Variant

I wanted to propose a futuristic scenario, a kind of extension of Rem Koolhaas‘ 1972

Detail of Roma map, Giambattista Nolli

You might also like