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Richard Haut
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Location: Nice, France
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 Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:39 pm Post subject: designing concentration camps |
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the architects who had designed one of Nazi Germany's concentration camps were very proud of their design - and had displays of it in their reception. The authorities told them to take down the display.
permanent facilities are now being built at camps like Guantanamo (cages-for-humans, people aged from 12 to 70 held without legal representation and rights denied, allegations increasing of abuse and torture, denial of access to humanitarian organisations and the press, etcetc). Concentration camps (originally a British invention used with grotesque inhumanity in the Boer War).
trying to give these institutions a different name does not alter the simple fact that American architects are designing concentration camps.
does it matter ?
do any American architects think that the designing of such institutions has any effect on their profession ?
would it affect the way that you or potential clients will view firms who do this sort of work ?
would you personally merely treat this as just another project ?
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Architorture
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Joined: 31 Jul 2004
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 10:58 pm Post subject: |
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i think you brought this up when i was looking for subjects for a little discussion in october last year...
KBR the architectural wing of halliburton was in charge of the design work at gitmo if i am not mistaken...
obviously their association with a high powered company like halliburton probably puts them in a situation in which it doesn't matter what kind of projects they work on...
ultimately there is nothing other architects can do to a firm that chooses to accept a bid from the government to design whatever institution they are looking for...sure they could go to the AIA or something and claim the work is 'unethical' but all that could possibly result in is some kind of slap on the wrist or worst case scenario they lose their AIA membership....whoopidy do!
if you look at the KBR portfolio they do some very large scale buildings, urban planning, and large infrastructure projects... they probably operate in a segment of the industry where the moral or ethical ramifications of the work one does are probably given very very little consideration... probably issues of budgetary concerns, speed, and quality are considered far more important in that segment...
so i guess that is how i would explain how KBR does the work and fears no consequences from it...
personally i'm not entirely sure how i view the situation....i'm sure someone could say they would do the project b /c they feel they could do the best job possible...of course then a definition of the word "best" is necessary...who is it 'best' for?
then of course one might say there is no way they would ever be associated with such a deplorable situation...but you wonder then what projects are they willing to work on, since i suppose if you try hard enough you can find a serious issue is at stake in any large project...and sometimes its not very difficult at all to find those issues...
this issue is probably right up there with the CIA and NSA hiring architects and engineers to identify the weaknesses in buildings abroad and at home in order to know the easiest way to bring them down or to reinforce them against possible attack... |
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:20 pm Post subject: |
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I agree that a complaint to an institute like the AIA is unlikely to get anywhere, but there is a reason that I brought up this subject again.
there are new permanent facilities being built at Guantanamo (and elsewhere I believe).
what architects in America probably do not realise is that people outside America do not see the everyday architects of America at work. To give an example of what I believe to be a concern imagine that someone wants to take their kid to an English-speaking doctor and a friend says "oh yes, he's a really good doctor - he's American". And just before they had read the equivalent of what you say about architects using their skills to guide destruction: the doctors at Abu Ghraib who helped torturers in how to cause the maximum distress.
would you take your kid to that doctor - that American doctor ? errrr .... perhaps not.
think of a profession - any profession. Up there among the top, the leaders of that profession, will be Americans. No question. Architecture, medicine, law - virtually anything. American professionals are important.
That is why the institutes (in other words the professions) themselves have no alternative but to speak out when something is done which taints and demeans the reputation of that profession.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Architorture
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:34 pm Post subject: |
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but just as with any other profession at the top certain struggles develop that one might not expect...
such as in medicine the question of cloning or stem cell research... no one is going to argue that there is no value in such research, but many will say there is something fundamentally wrong with it at a moral or ethical level...
so it become ethics v. the furthering of the profession...i think similar examples can be found in law as well when you see lawyers bending interpretations to the extreme just b/c it is possible, even though it may violate the ethical spirit the law was created under...
i think the same thing can happen in architecture... a profession with a body of ethics that some may choose to violate in order to further the profession in their opinion... we know there has been some kind of interest in the 'prison' for a long long time probably most potently demonstrated by piranesi's drawings of the sublime...
it probably is more broadly related to an interest in deliquency... which has had a comfy place in the american psyche since after the civil war....from the kirkbride buildings of the progressive era to james dean and flipped up collars.... |
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Tue Feb 01, 2005 11:52 pm Post subject: |
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I agree that there are many areas where a profession may need to adjust as society changes - and opinions can be diverse.
however some things do not change.
perhaps one of the most emotive examples in America is about abortion. However, I doubt that either those for or those against abortion would view doctors using their skills to actively assist in torture as being acceptable.
similarly with prison design, there are those who view prisons as places of punishment, while others would seek to make them environments which may re-educate and help the inmates. Again I doubt that either would approve of camps where those held have neither faced any charges nor been convicted of anything at all and are subjected to inhumane and cruel treatment in spaces specifically designed for that treatment.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Architorture
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| Posted: Wed Feb 02, 2005 12:20 am Post subject: |
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on the abortion issue there is most certainly those who associate the doctors activities with being unethical to the point of assassination...which happened not too long ago only a short distance from my house.... an abortion doctor was picked off in his house by a pro-life fanatical sniper...
on the abortion issue...if you are of the mind that abortion clinics are KILLING people.... i'm sure you would have reservations getting any kind of help from a doctor who took part in those activities...
but that is also at a much more personal scale...a scale that most people do not experience with a building...
i think prison design has most certainly gone in all directions.... you've had the 'panopticon' which is more or less torture by the all seeing all knowing... forced into a particular behavior since you never know if you are being watched....then you have brilliant minds like thomas edison who go and design the electric chair so that they can strap some poor mentally retarded guy into in in sing sing and fry him for 20 minutes....which of course was all a big power play between DC technology and the emerging AC technology....
and what is very funny about the story is that edison campaigned for AC b/c he thought it was dangerous and assumed that consumers would not want to use the type of electricity that was being associated with executions...
so how many DC powered homes do you know of richard?
i think that is probably the very best example i can give you for this issue |
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Architorture
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| Posted: Tue Feb 15, 2005 9:47 pm Post subject: |
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| where are you richard? |
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Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 10:23 am Post subject: |
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I suppose he's a little fried over this thread torture....but with regard to the definition of "torture" as it applies to the war on terror, here are some real points to consider:
1. The CIA came to the White House Counsel (last month when the review committee was grilling Gonzales) and asked him what constituted torture. You see, the CIA had some Islamic terrorists in their possession that meant America harm, and they wanted to know how far they could go to make those S.O.B.'s talk. As was his job to do, Gonzales asked the Department of Justice what their thoughts were.
2. The Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel responded with a memo (now leaked) in 2002 that gave a detailed explanation of what torture was. That same memo also explained that the Executive Branch had the authority to use torture, if deemed appropriate:
http://lawofwar.org/Yoo_Delahunty_Memo.htm
3. It was also pointed out that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to Al-Qaeda terrorists. They are unlawful combatants that aren't entitled to anything. If we applied the Geneva Conventions to Islamic terrorists, we would have to treat them the way we treated our own soldiers, let them openly socialize, give them a stipend, Internet access and free HBO.
This is a point of contention and a topic hard to swallow for most liberals, but it bears repeating: the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists. Never has, never will. We are free to do whatever we want with terrorists that attack the United States of America. They have no rights. Zippo  |
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 1:54 pm Post subject: |
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Or, to return to the thread, Donald sees nothing wrong with designing concentration camps.
That answers my question.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Architorture
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 1:58 pm Post subject: |
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| well i was hoping you would talk more to the point i made about people such as thomas edison and how inventions and advancements and design are related to 'unsavoury' activities |
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Richard Haut
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Joined: 18 Apr 2004
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Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 2:54 pm Post subject: |
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sorry, got distracted by the fellow in the orange jumpsuit (shouldn't they keep him locked up or sedated or something ?).
The murder of doctors by antiabortionists is, I think, separate. It is extremist behaviour by individuals. If the government condoned such action, then that would be different.
the Edison example is a really weird one.
on one hand, the age of the technology used is irrelevant. It is the behaviour that matters. Does it matter whether a guard beats a prisoner with a wooden club or one made of hi-tec material ?
but the other side is that the situation gives opportunity to the scietntist/technologist to try out their ideas. What they can bring is an implication of respectability (an intellectualizing of an otherwise unacceptable situation), and - worse - they bring enthusiasm. Their enthusiasm for their ideas and the wish to try them out can push forward behaviour that would otherwise be contained. People should not be used as guineapigs (but then why should guineapigs ?). Imagine an architect trying to design somewhere that deliberately caused distress to the inmates ?
The worst example was the use of eugenics through the first half of the 20th. Century right up to the 1970's. It was "the" science of the Nazis.
In design terms, it seems clear, doesn't it ? Somewhere that is designed to cause harm and distress cannot be condoned. If the prisoners are dangerous (or even viewed as 'evil'), what matters is that it is secure. Prisons are hardly amusing places, but why make them inhuman ? The purpose of imprisonment is the deprivation of freedom - wanton cruelty is something different.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 3:48 pm Post subject: |
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Do you want to know a bit more about prisons from - dumb slur -? I'm talking France, of course. Would you be surprised to learn that after France was liberated from the Nazis, at a cost, by the way, of tens of thousands of American lives, France held hundreds of foreigners, including three Englishmen, in a "secret prison"? I didn't think you would be surprised.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,14058,1318972,00.html
Of course that one doesn't count. |
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Richard Haut
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 4:46 pm Post subject: |
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sure, Donald, and Britain interned thousands of "enemy aliens" - even housing Nazis with Jews. The British invented the concentration camp in the Boer War. The French had quite a few camps - even the one at Les Milles; know about that do you ? That is where many of the people were sent whom Varian Fry was trying to save from the Nazis - until the US State Department made damn sure that he was stopped. An interesting message to the Nazis - that the US State Department was going to obstruct individual US citizens from saving Jews.
Some believe that that message was the one that showed the Nazis that America had no intention of obstructing what they were doing to the Jews, and led directly to the Holocaust.
it all happened long ago - and it takes serious desparation on your part to use it to defend the designing of concentration camps today.
the Japanese also had camps - evil camps. Use them as a design guide, do you ?
The French, Germans and Japanese do not design such camps today - Americans do.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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Donald
Joined: 16 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:17 pm Post subject: |
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I suppose with the leading RH quote:
| Quote: | | similarly with prison design, there are those who view prisons as places of punishment, while others would seek to make them environments which may re-educate and help the inmates. |
Yes, one has to wonder which way they treated prisoners of the past and just how we treat them today....what happened to those, many elderly and infirmed, who stayed? Some were marked "transferred". Others were moved in 1947 to Pithiviers or Rivesaltes camps, both officially closed. Some are marked: "Agreed with Mr Casse - to be lost". And what that means, no one really knows. ...What we do know is that we haven't lost any prisoners in the war on terrorism, or saw any heads rolling as yet.
| Quote: | | The French, Germans and Japanese do not design such camps today - Americans do. |
Must be that we are the ones who are doing the rest of the world a favor then. |
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Richard Haut
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Location: Nice, France
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| Posted: Wed Feb 16, 2005 5:48 pm Post subject: |
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in summary, not only would you be happy to design a concentration camp - it would for you be some sort of an achievement.
that is all I wanted to know.
you see, Donald, the question is rhetorical - America does design concentration camps. If there has been any sort of protest at all about it from your profession, then I certainly have not heard about it.
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Richard Haut has worked with the architectural profession for over 25 years and produces the weekly Richard Haut's Competitions, which has given architects details of many thousands of projects for which they can apply across Britain and Europe. |
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