Architectural Drawing studio

Imagining Kafka’s Castle

The cage of the heart

“He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection. ” Panopticon,

MARC6010 Architectural Studio 3

The Construction of Power in Franz Kafka’s The Castle

Kafka’s castle depicts an actuality controlled by ridiculous rules. In this world, our protagonist, k, as an unwelcome guest, is trying to achieve his goal of approaching the castle or finding Klamm. However, his attempts are hampered by a series of problems stemming from the ultimate source of power, the villagers’ active internalization of the corrupt rules, and the change in k’s own mind. Regardless of who controls the castle, the village and k’s actions are influenced and controlled by the power structure.

Jeremy Bentham presents his theory of building an ideal prison, a building consisting of a critical watchtower

and a row of circular cells surrounding it. The construction of this prison operation lies in the fear and vigilance of being under surveillance and eventually internalizing this feeling into one’s compliance with the rules. In my view, the entire castle is a reproduction of a panopticism system based on an authoritarian regime and permanent supervision and each individual’s contribution. In the novel, power seems to be everywhere, but the essence of power is rarely seen. All this lies in the view of the watchtower in the panoramic prison. The villagers’ belief in rules reinforces the power of the castle. These attributes are similar to the

concept of the panopticon prison.

By comparing the panopticism and the castle, the effects that k receives as a systemic outsider can be seen more clearly. K never realizes that he has reached the castle and that all that he is after is that he has become a part of the panoptic prison. From autonomy and resistance to ultimate obedience, the anti-utopian nature of panopticism is also revealed. So this project will present K’s journey in the castle from a panoramic perspective by linking the two to present a concept about the internalization of power and self-taming.

Imagining Kafka’s Castle

Internalized Authority and the Prison of the Mind

The real danger was not necessarily that individuals are repressed by the social order but that they are “carefully fabricated in it” (Foucault, 1977), and because there is a penetration of power into the behaviour of individuals.

Table of Content

Power is not concentrated only in the central watchtower but in each prisoner’s selfvigilance under the thorns’ deterrent for a panopticon system. In the beginning, the ultimate source of power was located in the castle, under the authority of the supervisor Kramer. However, the line between the castle and the village is not drawn. The village is the “property of the castle,” It is also part of its power structure. The multiple interactions between and among the villagers and

the authorities constitute the power that K. experiences in the novel. In this case, Watchtower Kramer does not need to assert or distribute power explicitly; his presence - or perceived presence - is enough to remind everyone of the mechanisms of power in their daily lives. Furthermore, the castle would be a building set up by the obstacles created by the inhabitants. So in the project, the entire castle is composed of a series of units that symbolize individual villagers.

The village is the castle

Eisenman’s Jewish Memorial, Berlin1

The first sight of the castle

The Conversation –Charcoal Artwork by Joseph Loughborough 2

The villagers became part of the castle.

As mentioned earlier, power comes from the interaction between villagers rather than from the radiation of a center. This essence leads K to get lost in the whole castle when he tries to keep pursuing the centrally located castle that represents power throughout his journey, without even thinking that he has partially achieved his goal of reaching the castle. On the other hand, power in the center, or Klamm, who represents the watcher in the panopticon,

is the cause of the villagers’ empowerment and the creation of power. Thus the whole castle becomes a world by the center and without a center. In this project, I use the superposition of two different

The lost in castle

Eisenman’s Jewish Memorial, Berlin3

Typewriter art,the Overlap of the grid,Pierre Chapo4

grids as a metaphor for such a world. On the surface, all K can experience is a series of vertical and parallel grids, the end of which is impossible to find. Moreover, in the deeper layers, a centripetal grid controls the parallel grid on the surface to change inward, suggesting the control of a central force. The result also fulfills precisely the concept of surveillance in the panorama.

The grid of castle (lines as walls) by author

A part of section to castle by author

Like its exterior, the Castle’s interior seems to be fiction staged for outsiders. Thus, the physicality of the Castle, like the watchtower in a circular prison, is essential to the villagers because it represents the infinite control that permeates their lives. The Castle exists primarily in their minds, dictating their thoughts and determining their actions, and it symbolically marks the point of arrival at their gaze at any given moment in any given place. This project transforms this gaze into a structural system implanted in the grid previously described.

Power in Castle

The interior of the castle

The key factor in the operation of surveillance and panopticism castle is not the intervention of officers, but the operation of the gaze. The ability of the inspector general to observe all directions at all times The examples on this page are meant to help me construct a sense of how to show how the

center’s power in a panoramic system extends as a structural system. The feeling of an extension of power spread throughout the Castle is reflected through an orderly arrangement of columns and horizontal connections from these projects. This will also appear in the final painting.

The inside of a water tower in Denmark designed by Ib Lunding5

power spread throughout the castle

The gaze

The inside of a water tower in Denmark designed by Ib Lunding6

UNA REGGIA PER I BUOI designed by Giuseppe Davanzo7

Extension of columns

As a gaze in panopticon

As in the panoramic prison, the power derives from the unequal status of the seen and unseen. Each person puts a veil over the power to be themselves with power. The inequality of Knowledge is used to create power for oneself. Under the rules of the panopticon, each of us can be a helper in protecting the ultimate authority. They were wrapped in layers of mutual surveillance. So the whole inside of the Castle should also present multiple layers and get thicker to the center.

House in Bescanó designed by Josep Ferrando8

The Expressionist ‘Großes Schauspielhaus’ (Great Theatre) designed by Hans Poelzig9

The multi-layer

Multi-layer as a screen

The Cage of the Heart

The Jewish Museum Berlin designed by Libeskind10

Constrained by the Limitations of Soviet-Era Architecture, Brodsky & Utkin11

Invasion of Power

In the panopticon system, the gaze and the concealment of power create camp privacy and intimate space oppression. K’s residence will always be broken by some accident. When K wants to talk with others, there are always villagers who intervene in the conversation. Even the space where K and Freda are intimate is also an exposed public place. All of this shows the unrestricted power and surveillance in the village, a prison-like place in which to walk. The examples in this section are manifestations of this similar feeling. The castle’s interior is revealed through a combination of the gaze transformed into a system of columns and multiple layers of obstructed walls.

The Jewish Museum Berlin designed by Libeskind

Invasion of colomns

The initial drawing

Based on the per ideas

Power comes from the knowledge the observer has accumulated from observations of others. Power becomes more efficient and active through the mechanisms of surveillance.

Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Michel

Foucault

In these films, the physical environment forms a direct response to the inner hearts of the characters.

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)12

The influnce of the castle

German Expressionism (cinema)

Throughout the Castle, which resembles a panoramic system, the presence of individuals is blurred by the uninterrupted intrusion. The mood of the individual becomes more and more desperate. Throughout the village, the villagers use isolation of K to stop K’s search for power. This maintenance of rules leads to a struggle in which K struggles the more he tries to

find the source of power. This struggle and the alienation of the inhabitants becomes what drives K. The change within K also makes K a prisoner of the system that is the Castle. A large part of the Castle’s prison properties come from within K. Therefore, as part of the physical environment, the Castle reflects this series of changes in the paintings. Like the environment

that represents the film, the entity of the Castle will also become a reaction to k’s broken mind.

The Realmonte Salt Mine in Sicily13

The cage of heart

The whole project will show the psychological changes K in the village through the texture of actual objects, the evolution of shadows, and the characters’ body language so that the emotions can be expressed through the environment setting.

‘Light and Shadows’ 1907 Etching by Tyra Kleen14

The Realmonte Salt Mine in Sicily15

The initial drawing

the texture and shadow as an expression of emotion

Invert

In the Castle, in moments such as when K. blunders into Burgel’s bedroom, if K. could submit or give in, he might gain access to the Castle. It is the moments when he follows the rules he gets closest to the Castle. When the k makes a prison of his mind, he becomes a part of the Castle. The journey of k is more like a fall of Free Will. For the same reason, the Castle was built on top of the largest artificial pit in the world, mir-mine. The whole journey should be like the inferno

in Dante’s Divine Comedy, extending to the bottom of the earth. Thus, I thought that the path through this architecture must not be a rise but rather a drop – into darkness.

Officius ciisto dolore, voluptas rerrorem

The section

The Mir mine

one of the largest excavated holes in the world.

The Journey of K of power.

The creation of a series of rules in a panopticon creates separate isolation between each one. Under the surveillance of an omnipotent sight, this series of isolation becomes an infinite invasion and alienation of each person, and all the separation eventually strengthens the obstacles faced by each person and eventually becomes a cycle without a solution. The process of getting lost in the castle eventually produced a set of six “scenes” -. These scenes are presented sequentially in the following pages.

In the village under the rules of the panopticon, k gradually becomes a victim of the internalization of the rules and the defenders

In a series of events, K. is ordered and expected to obey, given a job, relegated to the role of a servant, physically punished by the governess, allowed to have a lover and deprived of one, deprived of sleep . In a series of unconditional obedience to the rules of the villagers K. finally gives up his initial resistance. k. does not reach the castle in his heart. He became a part of it.

ARRIVAL AT THE VILLAGE

It was late in the evening when K. arrived. The village was deep in snow. The Castle hill was hidden, veiled in mist and darkness, nor was there even a glimmer of light to show that a castle was there. On the wooden bridge leading from the main road to the village K. stood for a long time gazing into the illusory emptiness above him.

In the first scene, K comes to the village, located in the center of the force, attracting him forward.

Lost in the streets

“And besides, there are several roads to the Castle. Now one of them is in fashion, and most carriages go by that, now it’s another and everything drives pell-mell there. And what governs this change of fashion has never yet been found out. At eight o’clock one morning they’ll all be on another road, ten minutes later on a third, and half an hour after that on the first road again, and then they may stick to that road all day, but every minute there’s the possibility of a change. Of course all the roads join up near the village, but by that tune all the carriages are racing like mad,while nearer the Castle the pace isn’t quite so fast. And the amount of traffic varies just as widely and incomprehensibly as the choice of roads. There are

often days when there’s not a carriage tobe seen, and others when they travel in crowds.”

As K keeps searching for the source of his power, he is isolated by the layers formed by the villagers. K is lost in them.

Tuiaut vel idenihi cabore

Surveillance from Klamm

“In the name of Klamm into the stall with you, into the stall, all of you!”

When they saw that she was in earnest they began to press towards the back wall in a kind of panic incomprehensible to K.., and under the impact of the first few a door shot open, letting in a current of night air through which they all vanished with Frieda behind them openly driving them across the courtyard into the stalls.

In the Castle, the representatives of power, the gaze, and ubiquitous surveillance of the protagonist’s movements.

ROOM IN THE INN

“The house was so small that nothing was available for K. but a little attic room, and even that had caused some difficulty, for two maids who had hitherto slept in it had to be quartered elsewhere. Nothing indeed had been done but to clear the maids out, the room was otherwise quite unprepared, no sheets on the single bed, only some pillows and a horse-blanket still in the same rumpled state as in the morning.”

K’s residence in the village was not a comfortable place to live, subject to constant surveillance and disturbance. The columns violate k’s private space, while the whole space presents a series of isolations. Walls and roofs are interlaced, obstructing the outside light source and blurring the perspective of the K’s.

Assimilation

“Sometimes that makes me quite dejected, I feel then as if I had lost everything, I feel as if I had only newly come to the village, yet not full of hope, as I actually came, but with the knowledge that only disappointments await me, and that I will have to swallow them down one after another to the very dregs.”

Isolation from the villagers eventually led to the collapse of k’s personal will, towards the path of agreeing to accept the Castle’s unreasonable rules.

The hiding truth

“He’s usually admitted into a large room, but the room isn’t Klamm’s bureau, nor even the bureau of any particular official. It’s a room divided into two by a single reading desk stretching all its length from wall to wall. One side is so narrow that two people can hardly squeeze past each other, and that’s reserved for the officials, the other side is spacious, and that’s where clients wait, spectators, servants, messengers. ..... because there’s so little room. In front of the desk and close to it, there are small low tables at which clerks sit ready to write from dictation, whenever the officials wish it.”

This last image shows the network of power in a panoptic system. The interior of the castle is a fictional structure for outsiders to view. K eventually becomes part of the Castle and is plunged into darkness.

Endnotes

1 ArchDaily. 2022. Peter Eisenman: Designing Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial. [online] Available at: <https://www.archdaily.com/938511/peter-eisenmandesigning-berlins-holocaust-memorial> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

2 WE AND THE COLOR. 2022. Exhibition: Joseph Loughborough – Defense of the Absent at Galerie Grand Rue. [online] Available at: <https://weandthecolor. com/exhibition-joseph-loughborough-defense-of-theabsent-at-galerie-grand-rue/27341> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

3 ArchDaily. 2022. Peter Eisenman: Designing Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial. [online] Available at: <https://www.archdaily.com/938511/peter-eisenmandesigning-berlins-holocaust-memorial> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

4 Commune | Daily. 2022. Typewriter Art. [online] Available at: <https://communedesign.tumblr.com/ post/87815680050/typewriter-art> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

5 Photorator. 2022. The inside of a water tower in Denmark designed by Ib Lunding. [online] Available at: <https://photorator.com/photo/95376/the-insideof-a-water-tower-in-denmark-designed-by-ib-lunding-> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

6 Ibid

7 Divisare. 2022. Giuseppe Davanzo, Paolo Mazzo · UNA REGGIA PER I BUOI. [online] Available at: <https://divisare.com/projects/399597-giuseppe-davanzopaolo-mazzo-una-reggia-per-i-buoi> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

8 ArchDaily. 2022. House in Bescanó / Josep Ferrando. [online] Available at: <https://www.archdaily. com/797453/house-in-bescano-josep-ferrando> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

9 Secretcitytravel.com. 2022. Berlin’s vanished past: an incredible Expressionist theatre. [online] Available at: <http://www.secretcitytravel. com/2016/friedrichstadt-palast-grosses-schauspielhaus-hans-poelzig-expressionist-theatre.shtml> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

10 ArchDaily. 2022. AD Classics: Jewish Museum, Berlin / Studio Libeskind. [online] Available at: <https://www.archdaily.com/91273/ad-classics-jewish-museum-berlin-daniel-libeskind> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

11 Colossal. 2022. Constrained by the Limitations of Soviet-Era Architecture, Brodsky & Utkin Imagined Fantastical Structures on Paper. [online] Available at: <https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/09/paper-architecture-brodsky-utkin/> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

12 IMDb. 2022. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920)IMDb. [online] Available at: <https://www.imdb.com/ title/tt0010323/> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

13 Amusingplanet.com. 2022. The Realmonte Salt Mine in Sicily. [online] Available at: <https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/11/the-realmonte-salt-mine-in-sicily. html> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

14 Auction.fr. 2022. Tyra Kleen (1874-1951) - Light and shadow, 1907 - 38*24,5 cm, lithograph on paper,[...] | lot 80 | Peintures & Antiquités at Biksady. [online] Available at: <https://www.auction. fr/_en/lot/tyra-kleen-1874-1951-light-and-shadow-190738-24-5-cm-lithograph-on-paper-8882677> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

15 Amusingplanet.com. 2022. The Realmonte Salt Mine in Sicily. [online] Available at: <https://www.amusingplanet.com/2015/11/the-realmonte-salt-mine-in-sicily. html> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

16 Displate. 2022. ‘Basic emotions’ Poster by World Class Photos | Displate. [online] Available at: <https://displate.com/displate/4874805?pe=abstract%2Cfan tasy&dfw_tracker=136257-4874805&epik=dj0yJnU9d3Zrb2J2Rm1BZmk3dFVDUGM3cnNkNXg5dTJzMUR5a3YmcD0wJm49WWo5dFlJeGRjbkptOUNoRzgyU2dwdyZ0PUFBQUFBR0tpQkVv> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

17 ThoughtCo. 2022. Dante’s 9 Circles of Hell: A Guide to the Structure of ‘Inferno’. [online] Available at: <https://www.thoughtco.com/dantes-9-circles-ofhell-741539> [Accessed 9 June 2022].

The real danger was not necessarily that individuals are repressed by the social order but that they are “carefully fabricated in it” (Foucault, 1977), and because there is a penetration of power into the behaviour of individuals.