JF Ptak Science Books   Quick Post

The architect Willey Reveley straightened out curves and curved out straight lines. 

Source: Wikimedia. 

As we can see here he had the idea of constructing a straightaway through the three famous bends of the River Thames in East London.  The straight part would be used for commerce while the bends would become docks and yards.  

Another vision by Reveley is seen below, from page 113 of Alexander Forrow’s The Thames and its Docks, a Lecture (London), 1877 (the full text available at the Internet Archive):

Source:  Wikicommons 

With all of this straightening-out of the river thinking going on in Reveley it is interesting to see that when he applied his brain to the the world of very straight lines as they exist in prisons that he went the other way–following the idea and commission by Jeremy Bentham, Reveley created plans for a circular prison. Bentham’s Panopticon was an idea that wouldn’t leave Bentham and occupied at least one small part of his brain throughout the 1790’s–I’m not sure where in Reveley’s head the idea lived, but it didn’t live there for long, as the architect died at a very young 39 in 1799. Bentham (born in 1748) lived until 1832, and never did see his Panopticon constructed. (Then again, he may come to see it if someone showed it to him, as his head has been preserved as an on- and off-again display at University College…)

Source:  http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/11/Panopticon.jpg