Building began in 1841 on a block of scrubland fronting a dirt track that became Russell Street. By 1850, the new gaol was already overcrowded. The oldest remaining section is the Second Cell Block which serves as a museum. The complex of buildings is historically significant for its role as reformatory prison for much of its functioning life.
The isolation of prisoners was intended to break their spirit in order to punishment replaced their character. XXX formerly said ’Punishment, if I can speak so, should strike the soul than the body.’
‘dance used the heavy rustication introduced by such sixteenth-century Mannerist architects as Giulio Romano to create an impression of foreboding, reinforced by walls virtually, unrelieved by windows, a deliberately inelegant articulation of the composition, and by such over symbolism as the carved chains over the entrances.’ This approach to punishment replaced what had come to be seen as the physically brutal and degrading convict system. Solitary confinement turned out to be psychologically damaging and rarely led to genuine reform.
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Architects of Melbourne gaol adopted the sell cell-based design of Pentonville Prison in London.
‘If anything is described by an architectural plan, it is the natural of human relationships, since the elements whose trace it records – walls, doors, windows and stairs – are employed first to divide and then selectively to re-unite inhabited