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Foucault Architecture
Foucault Architecture
In the lecture, History of Architecture 2, the notion of space has been examined
to enable an understanding of this aspect of architecture and its meaning to
modern architects of the early twentieth century. Compared to the notion of
space to early modern architects, who thought of space as an abstract non-entity
(Peterson 1980: 90), Michel Foucault of Postmodern philosophy acclaimed ;space
is fundamental in any exercise of power; (Rabinow 1984: 252). In relation to
space and power, he is interested in the question of ;Who is empowered by any
arrangement of this space?; and ;Who has the ability to act, to influence or to
authorise action?;
Based on his argument, this essay will examine how space became fundamental in
the mechanism of Foucault;s power-knowledge. Foucault;s idea on space in
relation to power will be gauged from a study of his interviews and writings
with his architectural examples expressing the mechanism.
Foucault and Architecture
Foucault;s interest in power might start from the Baconian dictum of ;Knowledge
is Power; and his particular interest in ;Knowledge of human beings, and Power
that acts on human beings; (Fillingham 1993: 5). His idea on Power and Knowledge
is discussed in The Archaeology of Knowledge (1969). His concept of this aspect
of archaeology displaced ;the human subject from the central role it played in
the humanism dominant in our culture since Kant.; Consequently, the withdrawal
of the central role of the human was portrayed as ;objects of disciplinary
knowledge; in Discipline and Punish (1975). To Foucault, knowledge is no longer
the ;autonomous intellectual structures that happen to be employed as Baconian
instruments of power,; but is tied to ;systems of social control; (Gutting 1995:
276).
Systems like prisons, hospitals and asylums are the source of his thought on
;disciplinary power; and architectural space is an indispensable factor of these
systems. Foucault;s discussion of power, space and systems as the object of
systems of social control traced the relationship among them from the end of the
eighteenth century.
He stated in ;Space, Knowledge, and Power; (1980), referring to the concepts of
power and space that architecture became political at the end of the eighteenth
century with the power of the government (Rainbow 1980: 239). According to him,
architectural space at the end of the eighteenth century in relation to the
power of the government had a major role to express and practice governmental
rationality. Spatial distribution in the city planning, in terms of displacing
collective facilities, hygiene and private architecture, is an expression of the
rationality of the government and, through that, the government established
orderly, efficient control of the city and its territory. The same principle
governing spatial distribution of the city applied to the state.
Therefore, space and its resultant power is controlled and arranged by the
government. However, in the early nineteenth century with the development of
technology, particularly railway and electricity, and the failure of spatial
distribution of government rationality caused by persisting urban problems, such
as revolts and epidemics, spatialization of the city and the state ceased
further to be in the domain of governmental power and spatial issues that was
the concern of architects, but instead became that of technicians, like