Michel Foucault
1926–1984
French philosopher whose analysis of power underpins almost everything written today on surveillance and the control of space.
Foucault showed that modern power works less by prohibiting than by organising: it distributes bodies in space, sets timetables, makes visible and classifies. The prison panopticon served him as a figure for something far broader, a society that polices itself because it knows it is watched.
For the city he left two tools. His idea of «biopolitics» explains urban hygiene, sanitation and population management as acts of government; and «heterotopias» name those places — the cemetery, the hospital, the ship, the theme park — that run on their own rules inside the city.
On Michel Foucault in this archive
- Urban form
Small Rules Shape City Order
How minor rules and regulations create urban order through everyday governance. Keywords: city, rules, governance.
Michel Foucault 3 min read - Public space
Urban Space: Power and Resistance
Urban space is not merely a physical setting where human activities take place; it is also a space deeply charged…
Michel Foucault 3 min read
