The Formless Architecture of Power
© AI artist | The all seeing eye.
When Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832), the English philosopher and jurist regarded as the father of modern utilitarianism, conceived the Panopticon in 1791, he did not merely design a new model of prison: he articulated a spatial paradigm of power. Its principle is as essential as it is radical: enabling a single watchman (opticon) to observe all (pan) the inmates without allowing them to know whether, at any given moment, they are actually being watched. The name also evokes Argus Panoptes from Greek mythology, the giant with a hundred eyes, emblem of absolute and unceasing vigilance.
The result is a building capable of exercising control without movement, imposing discipline without contact, transforming geometry into behaviour. Its form — an annulus of cells arranged around a central tower — became a symbol not because of its material realization, but because of its conceptual force: space can see, and in seeing, it can govern. Today, that tower is no longer necessary. Contemporary surveillance no longer relies on physical architecture but on an ecosystem of devices, networks, and algorithms that operate diffusely, discreetly, pervasively. Control is no longer inscribed in the floor plan of a prison, but in the logic of digital platforms, in the protocols that regulate communication, in the flows of data that traverse cities and shape behaviour.
© AI artist | The Panopticon, then and now.
Michel Foucault (1926–1984), one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century, recognized in the Panopticon a metaphor for disciplinary modernity. In his seminal work Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975), the French philosopher analyses the emergence of modern institutions and the shift from spectacular punishment to the capillary management of behaviour. He is not interested in Bentham’s building per se, but in the principle it embodies: a form of power that operates through asymmetric visibility, inducing subjects to internalize the constant possibility of being observed. The Panopticon thus becomes a model that spreads into schools, hospitals, factories, barracks, eventually permeating urban space. A machine that not only represses but shapes, directs, and moulds bodies. Foucault urges us to look beyond the visible structures of power to recognize the subtler and more pervasive forms of control that influence actions, choices, and thoughts.
© arcomai | Mobile facial recognition systems on the streets of London.
If Bentham’s penitentiary was a centripetal architecture grounded in one-directional visibility, today’s system is reticular, distributed, opaque. There is no longer a single point from which the gaze emanates: the gaze is everywhere. Intelligent cameras, facial recognition systems, urban sensors, smartphones, and cloud infrastructures construct an environment in which surveillance is not an exception but an ambient condition. Disciplinary power once expressed itself through form—plans, sections, spatial relations. Today it manifests through invisible infrastructures: cables, server farms, network protocols, recognition algorithms. It is an architecture without façade or monumentality, yet capable of directing urban flows, regulating access, anticipating behaviour. The city becomes a constellation of nodes that collect and interpret information. Surveillance does not merely observe: it predicts, classifies, optimizes. And in doing so, it reshapes the relationship between body and space. The citizen is no longer a confined subject but a tracked user; not a detainee to be disciplined, but a producer of data.
© arcomai | Notice of surveillance cameras in operation, Stanford (London).
In this scenario, architecture faces an unprecedented challenge: how can we design spaces that integrate immaterial infrastructures? How can we represent what has no form? How can we make visible what operates in invisibility? The lesson of the Panopticon does not lie in its geometry, nor in its architectural form, but in its ability to reveal the link between space and power. And since—today more than ever—that link passes through interfaces, algorithms, and networks, the question remains: who is watching whom? And how can architecture intervene in a world where control is no longer built but coded? The Panopticon reminds us that every infrastructure—material or digital—produces behaviours. The contemporary system shows that control can be total precisely because it no longer has a centre. Between these two extremes, architecture is called to redefine its role: no longer merely the art of space, but a discipline capable of interpreting and rendering legible the new geographies of power.