DAAE2002 Architecture, Place

and Society
Emily Withford.
510432177

Akhenaten and Architecture as an

Apparatus of Power and Control.
Abstract: Architectural refer to, “by the term

‘apparatus’ I mean a kind of

definition of Power.
formation, so to speak, that at

a given historical moment has

as its major function the

Architecture is intrinsically
response to an urgency. The
linked to power and control. It
apparatus is thus always
provides a manifestation for
inscribed unto a play of
the system of structural
power, but it is also always
thought created within a
linked to certain limits of
society to conceptualise the
knowledge that arises from it
world, but the question is,
and, to an equal degree,
how is this relevant to our
condition it.” Power is
contemporary society? Before
embodied in architecture,
defining this concept, I
especially the monumental
propose a premise, that
architecture created by
monuments are apparatuses
political influences, such as
of power, but this power is
the Egyptian Pharaoh,
materialised through
Akhenaten (1353-1336). His
overpowering control.
use of axial structures is
Foucault’s thinking applies to
consistently related to the
the architectural definition I
display of power from high,
divine, or lineage-based
control, which dominates the
community1. This type of
architecture is reimagined in
the contemporary world as
we redefine the parameters of
said apparatus through smart
cities with a focus on how our
modern society is being
controlled. The question
remains; should we heed the
warnings of the past?
Figurehead: Amenhotep IV
/ Akhenaten.
An enigmatic figure and
history’s ‘first monotheist’,
1
Glenn, M. (2003). Architecture
demonstrates power (Postgrad
Figure 1 - Akhenaten and his queen, Nefertiti
on a stone carved relief.
https://www.thoughtco.com/akhenaten-
4769554
Akhenaten’s heretical reforms
‘brought Egypt to the brink of
destruction’ (D. Redford).
Akhenaten (1372 -1336 BC)
reconstructed traditional
Egyptian society to create a
divide with traditional beliefs
and architecture, however,
this was only the beginning of
this monarchy’s revolution.
Moving from the city of
Thebes to a new, untouched
Thesis). Haverford College.
Department of Philosophy.
land, ‘Akhetaten’ or ‘Amarna’,

he created a modern centre

for worship of the Aten, the

sun god, and the dwelling

place of the king. It was also

the home of a large

population—an estimated

30,000 – 50,000 people, who

eventually abandoned the

new capital at the death of

Akhenaten two decades later.
Formally known as
Amenhotep IV, Akhenaten
had revolutionised the
ancient, polytheistic Egyptian
religion. He was seen as the
physical manifestations of the
god Aten, “there was one in
heaven, the other on earth”
Figure 2 - A bust of Akhenaten that
shows the new artistic style of the
period, elongated more natural
features, unlike what was typically seen
before. from
https://www.thenotsoinnocentsabroad.c
om/blog/controversial-theories-about-
akhenaten-ancient-egypts-hereti
(Urk. IV: 15:13)2. Gone were
the dark temples filled with
reliefs of animal-headed
gods. Instead, his was a
religion of light, the sun disk
of Aten. However, the

2
Cf. “and while you (Amun-re) performing your kingship” (Urk.
are in heaven, giving light to the IV: 1676:19–1677:1).
earth, he (the king) is on earth,
 political, military,

administrative and religious

powers are not only linked to

architecture through the Maat

manipulation of depictions,

but also the Akhenaten’s

One important aspect of
connection to the building he
being a pharaoh was
causes to be built, his
upholding Maat, the
command over its
personification of truth,
construction and the
justice, and the cosmic order.
leadership roles exhibited by
Throughout Akhenaten’s
that control (Glenn, M).
reign there was a continual

promotion of his divine power

and military imagery as a

means of maintaining Maat at

a time when great religious

reforms were in occurrence.

In an attempt to reflect order,

Figure 3 - The location of the new the images of Akhenaten

capital (Akhenaten) from the old
capitals, Memphis and Thebes. promote him as a divine
http://looklex.com/e.o/egypt.ancient.cit
ies_villages.htm being the Aten. Although
artworks push this image of
power Akhenaten had. It is
clear the revolutionary nature
of the religious change was
far too extreme to maintain
order among Egypt. One of
his goals within his reign was
to restore the power of the
pharaoh to what it was during
old Kingdom times. This was
largely done through the
adjustment of state religion
and how worship was
conducted. With Akhenaten’s
implementation of the Aten
came a new style of worship.
As Akhenaten and Nefertiti,
his main wife, were the only
ones who could directly
communicate with the Aten,
commoners and the even the
wealthy elite had to worship
the Aten through Akhenaten.
This change meant that
revering the royal family was
essential within life. The
heretic king also achieved
this goal by elevating himself
to the status of a god during
life, instead of after-life which
was customary of pharaohs.
Figure 4 - A stele depicting
Akhenaten and his family
worshipping the Aten or sun disk.
(Note: the pharaoh is much larger
than everyone else, symbolising his
status as a deity).
https://www.worldhistory.org/image/2
591/akhenaten-stele/
 of these, which makes it a

highly important indicator of

Temple Complex at
status. The scenes of the
Karnak, Thebes.
Heb-Sed Festival and

Akhenaten’s Jubilee are

examples of his personal and

Akhenaten took control of the
political propaganda in
populace by reminding them
traditional Egyptian
how mighty and all powerful
architecture and beliefs as he
he was, not only through
smites his enemies, ultimately
architecture, art, and reliefs
showing his godly power:
but by eradicating the known

polytheistic belief system. A

leader’s status is, in this

conext, indicated by their

control over others, the way

that others submit to him, his

capacity for leadership, his

wealth, and the other ways
they are set apart from the
populace. Akhenaten’s
Figure 5 - Image of Akhenaten at his Heb-
Sed festival. Dunn, J. (2022). The Sed-
festival: Renewal of the kings Rule and
Health. Retrieved 19 October 2022, from
http://www.touregypt.net/featurestories/sedfe
stival.htm

Architecture demonstrates all

Before the height of labour in building programs.

Akhenaten’s reign, he erected The labour needed for these

at least eight temples at constructions is considered in

Thebes/Karnak. The four this manner to be a powerful

greatest temples, all built of apparatus, “Labour, talent,

mudbrick, were: Gempa-aten skill, and artistic sense were

(Gm(t)-p3-itn), Hwt benben the main human possessions

(house of the BenBen), Red- that people had to create a

menu and Teni-menu. The world which could satisfy their

largest, Gempa-aten (190 x senses and their social and

33m), “the Sun-disc is found,” intellectual ambitions. The

was construction at Karnak more labour and so forth that

around 2000BC, orienting to was expended, the richer and

the East, where the sun more rewarding the world of

rises3. It was important for the sensual and intellectual

pharaohs to demonstrate products.”4 The axial temples

their amassed wealth, one had no roofs, and the offering

way for them to do this is tables were exposed to direct

3 4
Redford, D. (1978). The Razed Wilson, Peter J. The
Temple of Akhenaten. Scientific Domestication of the Human
American, 239(6), 136-147. doi: Species. New Haven: Yale
10.1038/scientificamerican1278- University Press, 1991., 82
136
sunlight, blurring the

distinction between inside

and outside, human and God.

Using these monuments as

apparatus of power and

propaganda, Akhenaten
begins to develop the political
position within his empire as
a singular being, a god on
Figure 6 - Talatat decoration from
Gempa-aten, depicting Akhenaten
being showered by Aten's rays of sun –
note, the Pharaoh is larger than the
other figures and helpers to display his
standing in society.

earth. Akhenaten

manipulated the architectural

vocabulary to influence The Great Temple of

peoples understanding of his Aten, Amarna.
cosmic power, to relinquish
In Year five of his reign,
their control to him and to win
Akhenaten announced the
their ultimate devotion and
creation of a new city,
control.5
‘Akhetaten’ or ‘Amarna’

(Horizon of the Sun), in a

5
Redford, D, (1979). The
Akhenaten Temple Project and
Karnak Excavations. Expedition
Magazine 21.2: n. pag.
Expedition Magazine. Penn
Museum, 1979 Web. 19 Oct 2020
<http://www.penn.museum/sites/
expedition/?p=4415>
location where nothing had
ever been built, to distance
himself from the legacy of the
past and clearly cement the
prominence and power of the
Aten within politics, religion,
and culture. It was located on
the East bank of the Nile that
was associated with the
sunrise and surrounded by a
crescent of cliffs with breaks
which allowed the sun’s rays
to enter at a certain point of
Figure 7 - Plan detail of the Great Temple of Aten - OceanVP. (2019). [Image].
Retrieved from https://www.amarna-verein.de/en/grosser-aton-tempel/
6
Michael Tawa taught this
concept in week 9, referring to
James Turell’s ‘Skyspace’. He
explains that an emergent
phenomenon is when all the
the year. This kind of
emergent phenomenon
consequently was one of the
founding architectural
qualities that Akhenaten
sought out within most of his
buildings6. One entered the
enclosure through a pylon,
then through to the
colonnades that stretched
between a long progression
of courts filled with offering
tables and large altars.
circumstances come together, for
example, to cast light over a
deliberate space, creating
ambiance.
Finally, beyond a huge

stretch of ground, stood a

second, inner building known

as the ‘Sanctuary of the Great

Aten Temple’. Akhenaten had

the ability to organise and

mobilise the entire population

to see him and his agenda as

the height of the hierarchy,

the god among earth, and the

leader that built an entirely
new capital from the ground
up.
Figure 8 - Reconstruction of Great Aten
Temple, with offering tables in the courtyards.
- Brown University. (2019). [Image].
Retrieved from https://blogs.brown.edu/arch-
0760-s01-2019-spring/2019/04/07/great-aten-
temple/

unheard of today. The smart

Contemporary city movement today is a

Equivalents popular field and is a reaction

to the challenges facing our

world, such as climate

It is important to note that the change and population

ability to organise and growth. We grew up under a

mobilise a population is not democratic government

 where buildings may is through an evolutionary

demonstrate access to step that contemporary

impressive resources and societies think of power in

craftsmanship, but they are terms of “destructive forces”7,

usually not tied to and that any sort of power

manipulation of people’s “can now be measured in

worldviews and grand terms of equivalents of so

assertions of power. Peter J, many megaton blasts”8 In

Wilson, the author of ‘The essence, he believes that

Domestication of the Human industrial, urban societies no

Species’ (1988), argues that it longer depict their belief

systems in architecture, nor is

their overarching power

evident in their architecture. If

the argument that

architecture is tied to power

Figure 9 - Songdo in South Korea: a
‘smart city’ whose roads and water, waste
and electricity systems are dense with and control is inapplicable to
electronic sensors. Photograph: Hotaik
Sung/Alamy - contemporary society, how
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/
dec/17/truth-smart-city-destroy- useful is it? With the rise of
democracy-urban-think

7 8
Wilson, Peter J. The Wilson, Peter J. The
Domestication of the Human Domestication of the Human
Species. New Haven: Yale Species. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1991, 76 University Press, 1991., 147
literacy, the necessity of
portraying ideas in
architecture diminishes as
writing gives a new medium
for depicting and
understanding realities.
Wilson states, “Until the
modern industrial age, the
age first of steam, then
electricity, and now atomic
energy, the most moving and
dramatic advertisement for
and demonstration of the
human attainment of power
was monumental
architecture” (Wilson). Such
utopian visions have been
endorsed by big technology,
9 Media, December 17, 2014.
Poole, Steven. “The Truth about
Smart Cities: 'in the End, They
Will Destroy Democracy'.” The
Guardian. Guardian News and
engineering and consulting
companies, the type of
companies that function on
data collection. The
movement is predicated on
ubiquitous wireless
broadband and the implanting
of computerised sensors into
the urban fabric9. The Dutch
architect, Rem Koolhaas
believed that “the citizens the
smart city claims to serve are
treated like infants. We are
fed cute icons of urban life,
integrated with harmless
devices, cohering into
pleasant diagrams in which
citizens and business are
https://www.theguardian.com/citie
s/2014/dec/17/truth-smart-city-
destroy-democracy-urban-
thinkers-buzzphrase
surrounded by more and
more circles of service that
create bubbles of control”. He
also states that a revolution of
the traditional European
values has gone unnoticed,
the values of liberty, equality
and fraternity have been
replaced in the 21st century
by comfort, security, and
sustainability (R. Koolhaas).
In essence, the contemporary
standard of power is
totalitarian control over the
urban fabric. The dichotomy
of control is rooted in a Stoic
practice that stated that some
things are within our control,
and others are not. Unlike
Akhenaten and his
architecture, political program
and art, we are now using
technology and surveillance
as apparatus of power. At the
Future Cities Summit (2022),
a keen observer, Jonathan
Rez of the University of New
South Wales, suggests that
“a smarter way to build cities
might be for architects and
urban planners to have
phycologists and
ethnographers on the team”.
This would offer a way to
acquire a better
Figure 10 - The new development plan
places a greater emphasis on nature
than digital technology. Image:
Waterfront Toronto,
https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2022/googl
e-s-failed-smart-city-showed--hubris-
.html
 for example, the proposed

urban development by

Google’s Sidewalk labs in

Toronto, Canada. The

amount of power that these

Figure 11 - -HEATHERWICK
STUDIO/SIDEWALK LABS —Quayside companies must have to
project in Toronto. The project has been
making headlines over its innovative ideas,
but also over data, privacy, transit, and construct these cities
underground infrastructure I exchange for a
cut of property taxes. concerns many and people

like Koolhaas believe that “in

understanding of how the
the end, they will destroy
citizens would live within
democracy.” This
these cities, after all, as it’s
development includes
exclaimed in Shakespeare’s
futuristic features such as
Coriolanus; “what is the city
heated footpaths that monitor
but the people?”.
weather forecasts so they can

turn on in cold climates,

integrating (non-existent)
Still, the argument of the
fleets of self-driving vehicles
necessity and how much
and a ‘digital building code
control the companies really
system’ to enforce flexible
have of such cities comes
zoning laws like volume level.
into question with the rise of
However, this project was
the change in values of living,
proposed during a time of

economic uncertainty when

covid struck, allowing the

company to walk away from

the proposal unscathed,

therefore it is considered a
failed idea as it was never
built.10
Figure 12 - A rendering of Google's smart
city project in Toronto, Canada. Image:
Sidewalk Labs,
https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2022/google-
s-failed-smart-city-showed--hubris-.html
amounting to millions of

electronic ears and eyes is

not unlike Akhenaten’s ruling.

These utopian architectural
Dr Ian Opperman, NSW Chief
developments come with the
Data Scientist and Australian
growth of technology as
Computer Society (ACS)
Sidewalk’s proposal was
Immediate Past President
underpinned by immense
states that people are
data collection and analysis
“starting to ask questions
regime that one would expect
around how much data is
from google. This constant
being collected, what else is
monitoring through vast
happening to that data, and
networks of sensors

10
Much like Akhenaten’s failed
new capital.
how much control have they the dictatorship of power and

got over its use.” This promotes the use of

demonstrates that it is these

technology as an apparatus
masterminding abilities to
of control and surveillance.
demonstrate or display their

power and control that

Final Note
provides the tangible,

physical product which the It is true that architecture is a

guests, visitors or followers highly useful apparatus of

can appreciate and to which power and control. We see

they physically and the parallels between ancient

emotionally respond, examples and our

inadvertently following in contemporary times as

Akhenaten’s footsteps. 11 The architecture is a manifestation

argument that architecture is of the ever-differing beliefs

linked to power and control system and structural

shifts its meaning when thought. Leaders use

applied to contemporary monumental architecture to

values, it engages less with represent their rule and to

demonstrate their power over

11
Wilson, Peter J. The Species. New Haven: Yale
Domestication of the Human University Press, 1991, 90-91
the people that they rule. In condemned to repeat their

doing so, they embody the mistakes”.

nature of their rule as they

are visual statements of their

ideology of power. Looking

first at Akhenaten, the heretic

king, the man who uprooted

an entire population to create

a new capital, we see how his

building program, art and

architecture changed the way

that people can be controlled.

The smart city movement

represents the contemporary

stage as they are a

manifestation of the redefined

parameters of control and

power as technology

becomes king. I end on a

quote by George Santayana,

“Those who cannot

remember their past are


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