The Intersection of the Body, Punishment, and Architecture
The human body has long been the subject of social control, shaped by power structures, cultural values, and disciplinary mechanisms. Michel Foucault, in Discipline and Punish, examines how power is exercised over individuals through exacting corporeal control and discipline. He argues that in disciplinary societies, power structures enforce order through spatial mechanisms, turning “the body” into a “docile body”.
Foucault identifies institutions such as schools, military barracks, hospitals, factories, and prisons as spaces where bodies are subjected to systematic control. This spatial and temporal regulation ensures compliance, conditioning individuals to internalize discipline. In contrast, Gilles Deleuze describes modern societies as “control societies,” where surveillance operates not through physical institutions but through mental constitutions. Here, fear of punishment is so ingrained to the very understandings of the individual from zher “self”, that zhe do not even entertain the thought of “resistance”, let alone, “rebellion”.
Historically, punishment was a public spectacle; execution, torture, and corporal punishment were performed as theatrical displays of the structure of power to instill fear and subsequently, submission.
In this context, the condemned body served as a canvas onto which authority inscribed its dominance through violence. Over time, however, societies transitioned to more discreet, internalized forms of control, where dress codes, beauty standards, and body norms function as disciplinary mechanisms. Unlike the overt brutality of pre-modern punishment, these modern mechanisms of control are subtle but deeply embedded, making individuals willingly participate in their own regulation.
The Mechanisms of Postmodern Disciplinary Control
Modern modes of disciplinary control operates through three key mechanisms:
- Self-regulation through the perception of constant surveillance; a continuous but invisible threat of being watched.
- Normalization of stereo-types; establishing norms that define acceptable behavior.
- Synergetic marriage of disciplinary-control models; combining top-down self-discipline with bottom-down social validation through conformity.
These mechanisms ensure bodily compliance, enforced through designed spaces and architectural interventions. Under such circumstances, the built environment is not neutral; it is a tool of power that once applied, shapes individual and collective behavior. Henri Lefebvre, in The Production of Space, argues that architecture both influences and is influenced by everyday social practices. This dialectical relationship means that while architecture imposes control over bodies, individuals also find ways to resist and repurpose space; for example, through urban interventions like parkour or graffiti.
From the Panopticon to Biopolitical Surveillance
Foucault’s concept of the Panopticon, derived from Jeremy Bentham’s prison model, exemplifies modern disciplinary power. In this circular prison design; very much informed by the receding lines of the perspectival representation of space that meet at a vintage point, inmates are constantly visible to a central watchtower but cannot tell whether they are actually being watched at any given moment. This uncertainty compels self-discipline, making the prisoner internalize surveillance.
This transition from public punishment to institutionalized control reflects a broader shift from sovereign power; which punishes bodies, to biopower; which manages populations. Modern governance no longer focuses on physical punishment, but instead, aims at optimizing human productivity through behavioral conditioning.
The Guillotine as a Public Performance
In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens describes the guillotine as a public spectacle, where Parisian bourgeois women reserve front-row seats, embroidering as they watch executions. This transformation of capital punishment into an spectacle shows how execution—originally designed to deter rebellion—became a form of collective engagement, reinforcing state authority through ritualized violence.
Mass Surveillance and the Digital City
In the contemporary digital age, disciplinary surveillance is no longer confined to physical architecture; it has expanded into data-driven systems. Governments now deploy CCTV networks and centralized databases to monitor urban populations. The feeling of being watched—even when invisible and lost in the crowd—creates a diffused and pervasive power.
In response, bottom-up resistance is also taking shape using the very same technologies. A striking example is Ushahidi, an open-source digital platform developed in Kenya after the 2007 election violence, allowing citizens to report incidents in real-time. While originally designed for civic empowerment, such technologies have also been co-opted by authorities for crowd-sourced surveillance, control, and enforcement. Citizens, who sympathize with the structure of power, armed with smartphones, are now both the watchers and the watched—surveillance is outsourced to the public itself.
Self-Regulation and the Architectural Response
This pervasive surveillance culture transforms urban space and social behavior:
- Public-private boundaries become sharper, as individuals retreat from public interaction into controlled environments of more domestic nature.
- Shopping malls replace traditional bazaars, offering highly regulated spaces where behavior can be controlled.
- Fear of public scrutiny encourages social withdrawal, reinforcing self-censorship and ultimately, self-erasure of the public space and consequently, public sphere.
The internalization of surveillance leads to voluntary isolation—individuals become confined to their homes, their domestic realms, detached from public life.
The Paradox of Urban Nostalgia
As a counter-response, modern housing developments in Iran have evolved into semi-private, semi-public hybrid spaces. These include swimming pools, gyms, shared lounges, and recreational areas—a manufactured urban nostalgia, where residents simulate collective life in isolation from the actual city. This paradoxical blend of urban fear and longing for communal presence highlights how architecture both reflects, shapes, and occasionally counter-acts with, or reacts to, contemporary anxieties.
Conclusion: The Role of Architecture in Further Consolidation Power Structures
The effectiveness of architecture depends on its alignment with power structures or its resistance to them. Whether as a tool for compliance or subversion, the built environment plays a critical role in shaping behavior. The question remains: Will architecture continue to reinforce submission, or can it serve as a platform for resistance, defiance, and/or redefinition?
For the full text, refer to the book “Entertainment in Public” Project
Mehrān Dāvari & Nashid Nabian
