Model Prison, Kweilin Fu, c.1900, Banister collection, Ba03-20
The caption in Bishop Banister’s photograph album for this photograph (Ba03-20) is: Model Prison. Kweilin Fu, Kwangsi. The prison is in the panopticon style, first designed by the English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham. The photograph dates from around the 1900s. It is remarkable for the contrast between the dramatic natural splendour of the famous Guilin karst outcrops and the grim human reality of a prison.
