Carceral Architecture

When architecture serves as a tool for punishment through confinement and isolation, every design choice affects lives. What is prison architecture? Where do spaces of incarceration from jails to migration camps and beyond materialize? How do their spatial logics haunt our contemporary societies? For the first time, Carceral Architecture offers readers an account of prison design and its effects by centering the voices of people impacted by the correctional system in the United States alongside those of activists, architects, designers, scholars, artists, and students. In so doing, it highlights a much-neglected issue of our time and helps reimagine a society that continues to be marked by the reality of mass incarceration.

With contributions by Amy Mielke, Andrea Armstrong, Anna Arabindan Kesson, Basile Baudez, Charlie McWeeny, Christopher Etienne, Christopher Talib Charriez, Dolfinette Martin, Een Jabriel, Élisabeth Lusset, Ennead Lab, Ess Pokornowski, Falk Bretschneider, Grégoire Korganow, Ibrahim Sulaimani, Isabelle Bonzom, Isabelle Heullant-Donat, Ithaka S+R, Jessica Womack, Jill Stockwell, Joel Negron, Juan Moreno Haines, Katie Chizuko Solien, Kennedy Mattes, MASS Design Group, Myriam Taylor Fair, Nafeesah Goldsmith, Per(Sister), Regina Chen, rl Goldberg, Sam Johnson, Sarah Lopez, Sowande’ Mustakeem, Spencer Weinreich, Syrita Seib, Tammy Ortiz (Ithaka S+R), and Victoria Bergbauer

This publication is made possible in part from the Barr Ferree Foundation Fund for Publications, Department of Art & Archaeology, Princeton University.

• A groundbreaking critical analysis of the architecture of jails, prisons, and beyond
• A diverse collection of voices from experts and scholars to activists and incarcerated individuals
• Includes an addendum with historical and pedagogical tools

Biographie

Basile Baudez ist Assoziierter Professor für Architekturgeschichte im Fachbereich Kunst und Archäologie an der Princeton University, USA. Er ist auf europäische Architektur des achtzehnten und neunzehnten Jahrhunderts spezialisiert, wobei der Schwerpunkt auf der Rolle der Architektur in Politik und Gesellschaft liegt.

Victoria Bergbauer ist Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow am The Fox Center for Humanistic Inquiry. Ihre Dissertation (Princeton University, 2025) liefert die erste transnationale Geschichte ehemaliger Inhaftierter und spürt den Ursprüngen und Architektur(en) der Rehabilitierung im 19. Jahrhundert nach.