JASPER MEIKLE 2024-25
ADVISOR: JOAN OCKMAN
FACULTY: GUIDO ZULIANI, NORA AKAWI, BRAD SAMUELS, HAYLEY EBER
FRONTISPIECE FROM THOMAS HOBBES' 1651 LEVIATHAN
THESIS STATEMENT
Political Allegories of Domesticity: From Control to Resistance
The Leviathan has long served as a metaphor for power, control, and order. In scripture, it represents both chaos and divine authority, while in Hobbes’ 1651 Leviathan, it becomes a commentary on the nature of life and the justification for centralized sovereignty as a necessary mechanism to suppress anarchy, marking the first appearance of social contract theory. This concept of sovereign control has direct architectural implications, particularly within domesticity, where the home functions as both an archive of habitation and a microcosm of broader social frameworks. As a fundamental instantiation of spatial and societal constructs, the home embodies competing forces of authority and autonomy. The employment of Leviathan provides contested ground on which the home can be framed under different societal movements.
This thesis examines how the home operates as both an instrument of Leviathan and a site of its resistance, two homes, two nuanced expressions of architectural domesticities that engage in theories of order and desire, neoliberal governance, bodily autonomy, and political allegory. As the sovereign figure of Leviathan evolves from the monumental state to the apparatuses of neoliberalism, so too does the architecture of domesticity—from an overtly regulated enclosure to a space of subtle behavioral conditioning. Drawing from Deleuze’s theory of control societies and Hardt and Negri’s concept of Empire, the domestic interior emerges not as a retreat from capital but as a site of biopolitical production—where surveillance, labor, and agency is recalibrated and coerced under the guise of order and freedom.
INSTALLATION AT THE COOPER UNION 2025 END OF YEAR SHOW
THE INITIAL FOURTEEN SELECTED PRECEDENTS OF DOMESTICITY:
SOCIETAL COLLAGE OF THE FOURTEEN PRECEDENTS:
LOGICS OF DOMESTICITIES: DIAGRAMS FROM PRECEDENT:
1. SUPERSTUDIO GRID: ENDLESS SITES OF DOMESTIC HABITATION, A CRITIQUE TO CAPITALIST URBANISM
2. CERTOSA DI PAVIA: SANCTUARY CELL THAT HAS A MODEST PRIVATE DOMESTIC SPACE WITH A PRIVATE OUTDOOR SPACE
3. SANCTUARY ROOM
4. FUNCTIONALIST ROOM
5. SOCIAL ROOM
6. FLUID SPACE FOR DOMESTIC INTERACTION
7. CERTOSA DI PAVIA: CLOISTER OF PRIVATE CELLS AROUND COMMUNAL COURTYARD
8. SANCTUARY SPACE OF A RADIAL DOMESTIC STRUCTURE
9. FUNCTIONALIST SPACE OF A RADIAL DOMESTIC STRUCTURE
10. SOCIAL SPACE OF A RADIAL DOMESTIC STRUCTURE
11. CONVERSATION PIT TYPE 1: THE MOST PUBLIC SOCIAL SPACE OF THE DOMESTIC
12. CONVERSATION PIT TYPE 2: THE LEAST PUBLIC SOCIAL SPACE OF THE DOMESTIC
13. CENTRAL COURTYARD, TYPICALLY COMMUNAL SPACE IN THE HOME
14. CIRCULATION OF FUNCTIONALIST DOMESTICITY
15. CENTRAL CORE OF UTILITY INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE HOME
16. PANOPTIC CELL AND TOWER
17. CITY OF CHAUX: FAMILY UNITS IN THE HOUSING OF A RADIAL INDUSTRIALIST URBANISM
18. NARKOMFIN BUILDING: REGIMENTED CELLS OF FUNCTIONALIST DOMESTICITY
19. HAKKA TULOU: FAMILY UNITS
20. HAKKA TULOU: COLLECTIVE FUNCTIONAL SPACE
21. HAKKA TULOU: COMMUNAL SPACE
2. CERTOSA DI PAVIA: SANCTUARY CELL THAT HAS A MODEST PRIVATE DOMESTIC SPACE WITH A PRIVATE OUTDOOR SPACE
3. SANCTUARY ROOM
4. FUNCTIONALIST ROOM
5. SOCIAL ROOM
6. FLUID SPACE FOR DOMESTIC INTERACTION
7. CERTOSA DI PAVIA: CLOISTER OF PRIVATE CELLS AROUND COMMUNAL COURTYARD
8. SANCTUARY SPACE OF A RADIAL DOMESTIC STRUCTURE
9. FUNCTIONALIST SPACE OF A RADIAL DOMESTIC STRUCTURE
10. SOCIAL SPACE OF A RADIAL DOMESTIC STRUCTURE
11. CONVERSATION PIT TYPE 1: THE MOST PUBLIC SOCIAL SPACE OF THE DOMESTIC
12. CONVERSATION PIT TYPE 2: THE LEAST PUBLIC SOCIAL SPACE OF THE DOMESTIC
13. CENTRAL COURTYARD, TYPICALLY COMMUNAL SPACE IN THE HOME
14. CIRCULATION OF FUNCTIONALIST DOMESTICITY
15. CENTRAL CORE OF UTILITY INFRASTRUCTURE OF THE HOME
16. PANOPTIC CELL AND TOWER
17. CITY OF CHAUX: FAMILY UNITS IN THE HOUSING OF A RADIAL INDUSTRIALIST URBANISM
18. NARKOMFIN BUILDING: REGIMENTED CELLS OF FUNCTIONALIST DOMESTICITY
19. HAKKA TULOU: FAMILY UNITS
20. HAKKA TULOU: COLLECTIVE FUNCTIONAL SPACE
21. HAKKA TULOU: COMMUNAL SPACE
PRECEDENT LOGIC DIAGRAM COMPOSITE STUDIES
POLITICAL ALLEGORIES OF DOMESTICITY: FROM CONTROL TO RESISTANCE
THE HOME OF THE LEVIATHAN: CONTROL
THE HOME OF THE FREE SUBJECT: RESISTANCE
THE CONTRA-POSED HOMES:
THE SUBJECT WHO ESCAPED LEVIATHAN
THE MASSES OF LEVIATHANIC DOMESTICITY
THE AUTONOMOUS SUBJECT