PRISON AND MASS HOUSING : THE ORDER FOR UTOPIA

Abstract

The models of the Modernist mass housing and prisons are of contradictory natures but yet typologically, spatially and architecturally similar: they are founded on the basis of modularity, linearity, centrality and more specifically the emphasis on functionality. The two models are founded on utopian aspirations albeit from opposing vantage points, and each has its own history of striving for perfection through rigorous planning. Distinguished largely by the target inhabitants and intentions, each model balances on between the separation of utopian and dystopian sentiments. Looking specifically through the perspectives of utopian cities for Singapore’s Housing and Development Board’s mass housing, and the Panopticon by Jeremy Bentham from the perspective of the prison, the principles and origins behind each model, despite a large disparity, are a result of the need of both models to accomplish the very same endeavours through different paths: To set up a system of order, use the order to effectuate a form of control, the representation of ideals in architectural form, and the suggestion at reform and “healthier” communities.