Thank you, that’s a good point, and I suppose that kind of psychological ‘control’ through actual architecture is a whole field in itself, and probably a point of much debate among architects and planners (e.g. http://www.designcommunity.com/discussion/19627.html).

In the sense that inspiring awe (or outright fear) can be used to control people, it is certainly an ‘architecture of control’, though most of the examples on this site are more about specific design features which prevent or enforce certain behaviours (there are a few psychological examples, such as the cone cup to discourage littering, as in the Judge, but even that relies on a functional product architecture).

It’s interesting, regarding the ‘tall building inspiring fear of God’ phenomenon, to read the descriptions of Hopton Stoddard’s ‘Temple of the Human Spirit’ in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead—the brief was for it to:

“capture—in stone, as others capture in music—not some narrow creed but the essence of all religion… the great aspiration of the human spirit towards the highest, the noblest, the best. The human spirit as the creator and conqueror of the ideal. The great life-giving force of the universe. The heroic human spirit.”

Howard Roark, architect, responds with:

“a small building of grey limestone. Its lines were horizontal, not the lines reaching to heaven, but the lines of the earth. It seemed to spread over the ground like arms outstretched at shoulder-height, palms down, in great, silent acceptance… It was scaled to human height in such a manner that it did not dwarf man, but stood as a setting that made his figure the only absolute, the gauge of perfection by which all dimensions were to be judged… It was a place where one would come to feel sinless and strong, to find the peace of spirit never granted save by one’s own glory.”

If anyone has any other observations/examples of psychological (or other) control being designed into environments, please, comment away.

Dan

It is argued that one of the principal reasons for constructing spiritual buildings and sculptures on such a ‘monumental’ scale is the desire by their architects to instil awe, and hence control, among the ‘masses’. The psychology appears to be: ‘only an immovable or eternal force could create something so massive and beautiful…so resistance is futile.’

We began to worship money, and hence skyscrapers, in the twentieth century, but before then, the tallest buildings in the World were often, if not always, Christian cathedrals. Similarly, in Communist states secular monuments often dominated the skylines (and still do in North Korea). I believe that these are all examples of ‘architectures of control’?

Peter