Architectures of Carcerality: The Auburn System and São Paulo’s Modern Penitentiary

In 1852, the Brazilian province of São Paulo inaugurated its first penitentiary, the House of Correction, as part of a modernizing project aimed at reforming penal structures and distancing the new empire from its former colonial practices. Designed to rehabilitate individuals deemed “criminals” through labor, solitary confinement, and enforced silence, the institution was modeled after New York’s Auburn Prison, at least in theory. In practice, São Paulo’s lawmakers, engineers, and provincial presidents adopted Auburn’s philosophy without fully considering its architectural requirements or inherent design flaws. When the engineers did attempt to replicate its spatial organization, they reproduced many of Auburn's inefficiencies, further demonstrating the limitations of importing foreign carceral models into Brazil’s legal and social context.

This paper examines the design and construction of São Paulo’s House of Correction compared to Auburn Prison, arguing that the failed adaptation of the penitentiary system and design reflects broader conceptual and structural flaws in Brazil’s carceral project. Despite its claims of modernity and civilization, the institution was embedded in an imperial society where slavery remained fundamental until 1888. As a result, the House of Correction—intended to serve as a rehabilitative space—functioned instead as an extension of Brazil’s existing social order, incarcerating free, freed, and enslaved individuals alike. The new penitentiary did not break from past punitive practices, nor did it diverge from the old colonial jail's structural defects and unhealthy conditions, but rather reinforced them, operating within a framework that systematically denied freedom to large segments of the population. By tracing these tensions between discourse and practice, this paper highlights how São Paulo’s first penitentiary mirrored rather than reformed the structures of old punishment practices, complicating the narratives of penal modernization in nineteenth-century Brazil.