CLASSIC OF PENITENTIARY ARCHITECTURE

The article highlights a number of historical events related to the reformatory transformations of the Main Prison Administration of the Russian Empire to improve the material and technical base of institutions that carried out criminal punishment in the form of imprisonment. At the center of the narrative is the figure of academician of architecture A. O. Tomishko, whose work on the development of standard and exclusive prison projects has radically changed not only the technical requirements, but also to a certain extent the very philosophy of imprisonment. The article focuses on the transformation of the approaches of the rear services to the organization of everyday life, the emergence of requirements that introduced elements of comfort in the detention of convicts. This can also be traced as a result of the analysis of the collection of projects of prison institutions prepared in the workshop of A. O. Tomishko. The object of the study was a unique album that combined these developments. Currently, it is stored in the scientific library of the Academy of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia and is available for review. The purpose of the work is to fill in the gaps in the historical coverage of this issue, to revive the interest of researchers in the topic under consideration.