Alcatraz

Brief Information

The name Alcatraz became attached to the island because of a map error: the Spanish name “island of gannets” was first applied to another place, and according to ornithologists, there are no colonies of gannets or pelicans here. This mix-up suits the island itself well: it is easier to understand not through its name, but through how people used the rock in the bay.

Alcatraz’s defining quality is isolation. Icy water and strong currents made the island suitable first for a fort, then for a military prison, and later for a maximum-security federal prison. In a small area, the prison cellhouse, early fortifications, an active lighthouse, tide pools, and seabird colonies ended up side by side. The place reads as a series of attempts to control the island: with light, weapons, walls, and the water itself.

What to Notice First

You can compare the lighthouse and the prison cellhouse. The first lighthouse appeared because of the flow of ships after the Gold Rush, but it was dismantled when the prison was built; the second was placed next to the cellhouse. In this way, a navigational object became incorporated into a space of control.

The early fort survived in a different form: the army demolished it, leaving only the foundation, and a new building for prisoners arose on the site. In the prison itself, what matters is not only the cells but also the engineering measures of 1934: steel bars instead of wooden ones, sealed service tunnels, gun galleries above the cells, and gas canisters in the dining hall ceiling. D Block shows the extreme end of this logic of punishment: it was considered the harshest. Wall inscriptions left after the Native American occupation remain from another period; they change the view of the island as a place not only of imprisonment, but also of political protest.