The House Is (not) a Prison (Paperback)

Colin Ripley

ISBN 10: 1988111617 / ISBN 13: 9781988111612

Published by Concordia University Press, 2026

About this Item

Paperback. Where is sexuality, especially queer sexuality, in architecture? The House Is (Not) a Prison approaches this question from a radically new position, looking not for a theory of queer architecture, but rather for a queer theory of architecture. Starting from a reconsideration of the foundational principles of architecture, Colin Ripley demonstrates how the division of space steals land from the commons and forces separations and categories. In the process, queerness is created as an indispensable outside to architecture's disciplinary interior. Tracing the evolution of architecture from the late Enlightenment to the postwar twentieth century, Ripley shows how distinctions between the prison and the domestic home began to collapse in nineteenth-century initiatives to rehabilitate the criminalized, and blurred even further with the popularization of glass and concrete in the modernist cell. He examines sites such as Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon, Guillaume-Abel Blouet's Mettray penal colony, Fontevrault prison, Le Corbusier's Villa Savoye, Philip Johnson's Glass House, and the architecture of North American suburbs to better understand how structures both facilitate and regulate queer sexuality. A parallel text in the endnotes connects Jean Genet's prison-set writings to buttress the relationship between architectural features and queerness. A provocative and surprising work, with a foreword by Slavoj Zizek, The House Is (Not) a Prison advances understandings of queer space. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability.

Seller Inventory # 9781988111612

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The House Is (not) a Prison (Paperback)
• Publisher: Concordia University Press
• Publication Date: 2026
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1988111617
• ISBN 13: 9781988111612
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: new

About this title

Synopsis

Explores the relationship between architecture and queerness in modernity.

Where is sexuality, especially queer sexuality, in architecture? The House Is (Not) a Prison approaches this question from a radically new position, looking not for a theory of queer architecture, but rather for a queer theory of architecture. Starting from a reconsideration of the foundational principles of architecture, Colin Ripley demonstrates how the division of space steals land from the commons and forces separations and categories. In the process, queerness is created as an indispensable outside to architecture’s disciplinary interior.

Tracing the evolution of architecture from the late Enlightenment to the postwar twentieth century, Ripley shows how distinctions between the prison and the domestic home began to collapse in nineteenth-century initiatives to rehabilitate the criminalized and blurred even further with the popularization of glass and concrete in the modernist cell. He examines sites such as Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon, Guillaume-Abel Blouet’s Mettray penal colony, Fontevrault prison, Le Corbusier’s Villa Savoye, Philip Johnson’s Glass House, and the architecture of North American suburbs to better understand how structures both facilitate and regulate queer sexuality. A parallel text in the endnotes connects Jean Genet’s prison-set writings to buttress the relationship between architectural features and queerness. A provocative and surprising work, with a foreword by Slavoj Zizek, The House Is (Not) a Prison advances understandings of queer space.

About the Author

Colin Ripley is an architect and professor in the School of Interior Design at Toronto Metropolitan University.