Domesticidad “entre rejas”: Proyecto de Rem Koolhaas/OMA para la prisión Panóptica en Arnhem (1979-1988)

The doctoral thesis entitled Domesticity “Behind Bars”: Rem Koolhaas/OMA’s Project for the Panopticon Prison in Arnhem (1979-1988), was carried out in the academic framework of the Advanced Architectural Projects Doctoral Program and the Collective Housing research group (GIVCO) of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid. Also, through a two-year international stay in the research group Architecture Culture and Modernity of the Delft University of Technology and in the Jaap Bakema Study Centre of the Het Nieuwe Instituut in Rotterdam.[1]
This doctoral thesis poses the following research question: How is it possible to explore the tensions and contradictions of domesticity? To do so, it proposes to study the dwellings of those who do not have the family as a referent, that is, other dwellings inhabited by single people, but within a community: the prisons. This approach is based on the work of Robin Evans, especially his doctoral thesis on prisons (1750-1840), when they reduced contact between people to a minimum, so that, paradoxically, they were “densely packed of isolated individuals”.[2]
The thesis Domesticity “Behind Bars” raises the critical conjecture that prisons are dwellings, and dwellings can also be considered prisons. This approach aims to extend the traditional boundaries of the study of housing by incorporating prisons as such. The author developed this hypothesis thanks to a research project funded by the European Union and the Community of Madrid.[3] The thesis focuses on one of the three pure Panopticon prisons built in Europe at the end of the 19th century. All three are in the Netherlands, where they are National Monuments.
The thesis explores the transformations of the domesticity of the Panopticon prison located in the city of Arnhem (1882-1886), in relation to the evolution of prison policies over more than a century. In particular, it analyses the Koolhaas/OMA project for the renovation of this prison (1979-1988), when these policies sought to make prisons look like modern dwellings, even removing the bars, which provoked widespread rejection in society, both specialised and general, who wondered indignantly whether their homes were also prisons.
The thesis shows how architectural theory and practice converge in this paradigmatic project, emblematic of what Michel Foucault called the “disciplinary society”.[4] Koolhaas/OMA’s research on prisons not only studied the extent to which the social objectives of different eras could be architecturally realised but also the extent to which this Panopticon prison could, even without any architectural intervention, shed them and change the uses for which it had been conceived.
Today, due to the significant drop in the number of prisoners in the Netherlands, many prisons have become empty and are being demolished or converted to new uses. The Koolhaas/OMA project for the Panopticon prison in Arnhem was not executed, although it is interesting to note that this year OMA has announced that it will carry out the renovation of another of the three Panopticon prisons in the Netherlands, in this case, the one in the city of Breda. This shows the relevance of this doctoral thesis.

[1] Research stays funded by the Social Council of the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, and the Erasmus+ Traineeship Grant of the European Union (2019-2021).
[2] Robin Evans, «Prison design 1750-1842. A study of the Relationship Between Functional Architecture and Penal Ideology» (Ph.D. Thesis, Essex, University of Essex, 1975).
[3] Competitive public call funded by the European Union and the Community of Madrid, PEJD-2017-PRE/HUM-4149, Predoctoral Researcher Fellow (2017-2019).
[4] Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir: naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975).