Ricerc@Sapienza

This article discusses the topic of the ‘architecture’ of the prison in the Italian context.
It argues the Italian context data and it deals with issues related to prison’s architectural
typology evolution, the needs and performance approach and examples of good practices.
The prison lacks architecture in Italy. What is the best design approach and the
methodology right? The chapter contends that it’s necessary to consider the prison as
architecture for life linked with urban life and the design can start from needs of users.

The chapter discusses how the he book draws together a collage of independent multidisciplinary contributions discussing places and spaces where punishment takes place. It is important to emphasize that the contributors themselves have chosen the topics and studies they present. The chapters stand alone and do not represent conditions in Norway or Italy. The texts are written by researchers and architects who work within different disciplinary traditions, practice fields and within various methodological traditions.

What is prison architecture and how can it be studied? How are concepts such as humanism, dignity and solidarity translated into prison architecture? What kind of ideologies and ideas are expressed in various prison buildings from different eras and locations? What is the outside and the inside of a prison, and what is the significance of movement within the prison space? What does a lunch table have to do with prison architecture? How do prisoners experience materiality in serving a prison sentence? These questions are central to the texts presented in this anthology.

What is prison architecture and how can it be studied? How are concepts such as humanism, dignity and solidarity translated into prison architecture? What kind of ideologies and ideas are expressed in various prison buildings from different eras and locations? What is the outside and the inside of a prison, and what is the significance of movement within the prison space? What does a lunch table have to do with prison architecture? How do prisoners experience materiality in serving a prison sentence? These questions are central to the texts presented in this anthology.

The prison cell is both a concrete place experienced by physical bodies and an imagined room that we meet in fiction, films and, also more recently, via penal tourism (Turner 2013). The prison cell symbolises penalty (Foucault 1977) and is, in classic penological literature, considered to be the most intimate and private space within the prison where the prisoner rests, sleeps, eats and is alone with their thoughts (Gramsci 1947).

Among the founders of Gip (Groupe d’Informations sur les Prisons), Michel Foucault was the only one who had researched internment practices during his academical career and he would also be the only one to develop his militancy in a new field of research concerning prisons. In 1971, when the Gip was created, Foucault had already behind him the publication of History of Madness (1961). Then, in 1973, he held at the Collège de France a course entitled The Punitive Society (La société punitive) and in 1975 released Discipline and Punish, book with the subtitle The Birth of the Prison.