ARC 141 Paper 02

Jeremy Bentham, the original designer for the Panopticon, uses his creation to induce a sense of permanent visibility that ensures the functioning of power. He also decreed that power should be visible yet unverifiable. In the present times we have a more modern version of Panopticon. One such example is the Syracuse University Quad, an area that a majority of Syracuse University students walk through everyday.

Enclosed by several buildings such as Link Hall, H.B.C. Hall, Carnegie Library, Hendricks Chapel and Hinds Hall, the Syracuse University Quadrangle performs the functions of both a Panopticon as well as an Inverse Panopticon at night.

The several windows of Link Hall and Hinds Hall give people inside the structures the ‘power of invisibility’; they can see everyone but no one can see them. This phenomenon gives students walking through or in the quad the feeling of being watched whenever they stay or pass through it. What is even more interesting to note is that when the lights in the rooms of Link Hall are on, it gives students in the quad the ‘power of invisibility’, without the people inside to know who may be watching them– forming the original idea of the Panopticon.

The particular geometry of the quad and small size of the pathways through it define movement through it. The particular lines formed by these pathways, in plan, give passer-through the idea that they should move only on that particular walkway. The grass lawns, in contrast with the stone pathways make the lawns seem like a boundary, as if inaccessible to walkers. This enforces the idea to students that they should follow a norm – some areas are not accessible to students.

At the same time, the buildings act as a blockade, and the tiny spaces in between the buildings make the students want to move into the quad, it being a more open area. The open area in the quad, which is used for public gathering, gives the student the feeling of staying in such an area for a longer period of time than usual.

Looking at the quad as a whole, there is a very thin blurry line between the observer and the observed. A person becomes an observer as soon as they enter the quad and see everyone in it, not to mention the views they get from the various windows and apertures in and through the surrounding buildings.

A person become one of the observed as soon as they notice someone entering the quad or notice someone watching them through a window. As soon as the student notices someone, he/she tends to act disciplined and orderly, this enforcing the norms of social behavior and discipline Michel Foucault writes about in the article entitled “Panopticism”.

These situations show how the Syracuse University Quad is designed to enforce social controlamong the people in that area, showing the concept of the Panopticon and how at night, people in the Quad are able to view others without being noticed, forming the concept of an Inverse Panopticon. It is also interesting to know that how at any point in the Quad, students take the form of both an observer and as one of the observed.