Dear Steven,
regarding your comment:"However, these concerns have expanded to the
social melieu where architectural forms play a significant role in
socio-cultural constitution.
...treatment of Bentham's panopticon in _Discipline and Punish_. In brief,
the panopticon is an institutional form designed to create subjects of
the sort that internalize surveillance relations for the purpose of
achieving their docility. My interests in architecture are
interpretively similar."
sp:
You may be elated to know that the work you are describing have been
thoroughly incorporated into the consciousness of design studios at
Columbia's GSAP for some time now, particularly in Stan Allen's studio.
Further, I will cite a brief passage from the text _Against Architecture_
by Dennis Hollier that entails the writing of George Bataille, this is
from the introduction:
"Is prison then the generic name designating all architectural
production? Is architecture in a position to reply to poststructuralist
accusations that reveal and denounce a prison in every monument or
building? Is it possible to conceive of an architecture that would not
inspire as in Bataille, social good behavior, or would not produce, as in
Foucault's disciplinary factory, madness or criminality in individuals?
Architectural devices, according to Foucault, produce subjects; they
individualize personal identities. But why would they not work in
reverse, leading against the grain to some space before the constitution
of the subject, before the institutionalization of subjectivity? An
architecture that, instead of localizing madness, would open up a space
anterior to the division between madness and reason; rather than
performing the subject, it would perform spacing; a space from before the
subject, from before meaning; the asubjective, asemantic space of an
unedifying architecture, an architecture that would not allow space for
the time needed to become a subject."
Steven, welcome to architecture, there is plenty for you to do and plenty
that has been done. Do teach us more about Foucault but on this list,
remember to duck....
all the best,
stephen perrella
architect at the end of metaphysics
regarding your comment:"However, these concerns have expanded to the
social melieu where architectural forms play a significant role in
socio-cultural constitution.
...treatment of Bentham's panopticon in _Discipline and Punish_. In brief,
the panopticon is an institutional form designed to create subjects of
the sort that internalize surveillance relations for the purpose of
achieving their docility. My interests in architecture are
interpretively similar."
sp:
You may be elated to know that the work you are describing have been
thoroughly incorporated into the consciousness of design studios at
Columbia's GSAP for some time now, particularly in Stan Allen's studio.
Further, I will cite a brief passage from the text _Against Architecture_
by Dennis Hollier that entails the writing of George Bataille, this is
from the introduction:
"Is prison then the generic name designating all architectural
production? Is architecture in a position to reply to poststructuralist
accusations that reveal and denounce a prison in every monument or
building? Is it possible to conceive of an architecture that would not
inspire as in Bataille, social good behavior, or would not produce, as in
Foucault's disciplinary factory, madness or criminality in individuals?
Architectural devices, according to Foucault, produce subjects; they
individualize personal identities. But why would they not work in
reverse, leading against the grain to some space before the constitution
of the subject, before the institutionalization of subjectivity? An
architecture that, instead of localizing madness, would open up a space
anterior to the division between madness and reason; rather than
performing the subject, it would perform spacing; a space from before the
subject, from before meaning; the asubjective, asemantic space of an
unedifying architecture, an architecture that would not allow space for
the time needed to become a subject."
Steven, welcome to architecture, there is plenty for you to do and plenty
that has been done. Do teach us more about Foucault but on this list,
remember to duck....
all the best,
stephen perrella
architect at the end of metaphysics