In Halden Prison, I was constantly being reminded that I was a prisoner, of less value than prison officers, and I existed at their mercy. There were some good employees who tried to improve the daily lives of us inmates but there was little they could do. When I came to Bastøy Prison, I was given respon-sibility and shown trust. I have a job where I sometimes forget that I am in a prison. This is of course my own denial of reality but it helps me to make the days pass. I have a boss who I see as boss and who treats me like a human being. I feel I have value because the boss and several employees see me as a person. I do not care about colours and modern buildings; I care about the people that give me a feeling of personal value. I hope they understand that the way that they treat us inmates – all over the world – is far more helpful than an artist smartening up the walls and choosing the colours to be used in prisons.
Someone has decided to focus on the prison environment for inmates and I have been asked to comment on the materialistic aspect. I am unable to see the value of this exercise and and in fact find it quite amusing. But I still want to
Location, colour and furniture are no substitute for the need of humans to feel that they belong, to be accepted, to be recognized and possibly even forgiven.
I have been placed somewhere I do not want to be. I know I deserve it and the only forgiveness I really seek is from those I am kept away from. With my hand on my heart I can say that the world’s most humane prison, decorated by artists and architects crushed me more than I had thought possible. It is only now, here in the old, worn-out, obsolete prison that I begin to feel dignity again. My maxim is: Humanity rather than materialism. Things mean nothing, relation-ships mean everything.
Architecture and the Prison Landscape
In the first section we will present methods, theories, empirical data and pro-totypes that architects and researchers use when studying and planning pris-ons and prison landscapes. Chapter 3, “Prispris-ons Between Territory and Space:
An Analysis in Italy and Norway”, presents a method adapted in order to study Italian and Norwegian prisons from a morphological perspective. The ‘Google-Mapping-Method’ reveals some interesting patterns and raises questions about Italian and Norwegian tradition, size, the meaning of space and what is regarded as important. One of the themes in this chapter is the green outdoor space. This theme is followed up in chapter 4 on “Movement in the Prison Landscape – Leisure Activities – Inside, Outside and In-between”. Here, the arrangement and movement of bodies in the prison landscape are discussed.
that efforts should be made to use both time and space in facilitating activities for the sake of the prisoners’ wellbeing and health. To extend the limits of what a body can do will give prisoners the opportunity to affect, to be affected and to create new relations.
In the next article, “Prison, Cities and Urban Planning” (chapter 5), ning from an urban point of view is explored. The article takes us to the plan-ning of Rebibbia Prison in Rome and it discusses the relationship between the prison and Rome not only according to the Italian urban-planning tools, but also in relation to some ‘in’ and ‘out’ relationships with the cultural and the local political world. Chapter 6 discusses “Prisons and Architecture. The Italian Framework”. It presents some recent data on Italian prisons and it stresses the dichotomy between the existing laws and reality. We enter into the topic of the architecture of the prisons, discussing the slow evolution of the prison’s typol-ogy in Italy, and answer the question of whether and how it is possible nowa-days in Italy to talk about architecture in prison design and what steps are needed to approach the topic, putting the users at the center of the design activity.
The last contribution in this section (chapter 7) is “The City Confined”. This is an example of a prototype of an Italian prison. In 2001 the design idea won first prize in the public competition organized by the Italian Ministry of Justice.
The article shows the architectural approach to the project: the penitential facility as a city, or rather a village, that considers all the limits implicit in a prison, but improving the dignity and life of the prisoners.
Prisons Between territory and Space: A Comparative Analysis Between Prison Architecture in Italy and Norway
Francesca Giofrè Livia Porro and Elisabeth Fransson
How can the software Google Earth Pro contribute to our knowledge of prison archi-tecture, territory and space? This chapter presents a morphological and dimensional analysis of seven Italian and six Norwegian prisons, which aims to relate these physi-cal data to other kinds of information collected by official sources and prisons, such as, the construction period, the urban pattern where they are placed, and the kind and number of people housed. The aim of the article is to show the methodology applied and to discuss the results in terms of differences and similarities among the Italian and Norwegian prisons, being aware that the placement in the terrain, the size of the prisons, and the composition of the different parts of the prison complex (fences, guard towers, buildings, open spaces and more) are an expression of culture and ideology. They reflect penitentiary laws and regulation, and the culture of impris-onment in each country.