Pilsen Prison Analysis

The Pilsen Prison was chosen as the design legacy for comparison against the Eastern State Penitentiary primarily because of its physical design. The architect who designed the prison, Emanuel Trojan, took inspiration from the design of the Eastern State Penitentiary. (Hůlová, 2012, p. 29). If you look at the Pilsen Prison from an aerial view, you can clearly see that its design is nearly identical to that of the Eastern State Penitentiary. Pilsen Prison, or also spelt Plzeň Prison, has had many names over the course of its existence such as Plzen-Bory Correctional Facility or Věznice Plzeň. It was built sometime around 1878 on fourteen acres of land in the city of Plzeň, Czech Republic and is one of the most famous in the country, though

(Bursík, 2008, p. 114).

Its original design was meant for the prison to be able to accommodate nine hundred and fifteen prisoners, with around three-hundred and eighty of them being in solitary confinement and about five hundred and thirty of them having shared cells. However, over the years this number has grown and the prison can now hold a just over one thousand prisoners, with the scope of the crimes that prisoners have committed in order to be imprisoned in Pilsen Prison has a wide range of variation, as did the age of those who have committed the crime. Each cell block has between three to four floors. The majority of the cells are designed to hold two prisoners at a time in order to save space and be able to house as many prisoners as possible. (Bursík, 2008, p. 116).However, the prison does have single cells that are used for the solitary confinement of inmates. In the early years of Pilsen Prison, prisoners were discouraged from talking to one another. This system did not last long and eventually it was

It totals a six feet thick around with the exception of the front gate, which is also the only entrance or exit in the wall. It also has guard towers on the surrounding wall at regularly spaced intervals in order to observe anyone approaching the wall on either the inside or the outside. On either side of the wall is a walkway made of asphalt; in fact, all of the area that is next to any part of the wall on the inside of the prison is asphalt. Most of the ground within the prison walls is both asphalt or baron dirt with nothing growing in it, there is very little grass and even that is struggling to survive. When it comes to trees, there are fewer than half a dozen on the fourteen acres. None of the trees are near the walls of the Pilsen Prison in case the inmates were to try to use them to get over the wall and escape. When you look at the outside prison and the surrounding wall, it has either sand coloured walls or they are an orange-brown colour which contrasts the dark green or black roof of the prison. ("Google Maps"). The Prison was constructed mainly out of brick, stone, and cement. The majority of the prison’s administrative offices are located in the first building that you come across once you pass through the main gates. (Svoboda, 2004, p. 18). It has a total of eight evenly spaced buildings coming off of a round central watchtower with a domed roof at the centre of the