Panopticon

The Panopticon was the main room of the Capitol on Gallifrey. It served as the Time Lords’ parliament and seat of State. (PROSE: Engines of War) The Eye of Harmony was secretly kept under the Panopticon. (TV: The Deadly Assassin)

The name panopticon was likely derived from opticon, the Gallifreyan word for the ancient village meeting place. (PROSE: Blind Fury)

The Panopticon had six sides. That number was revered on Gallifrey because it was the number of founders of Time Lord society. At every corner of the Panopticon, there were six black statues of the six founders of Time Lord society (Rassilon, Omega, Pandak, the Other, Apeiron and one other, possibly Eutenoyar). Every Chapterhouse (Prydonian Chapter, Arcalian Chapter, Patrex Chapter, Dromeian Chapter, Cerulean Chapter and the Scendles Chapter) was involved in a competition to build a bigger statue of their founder than the other Chapterhouses, which resulted in the Scendles Chapter being bankrupted. (PROSE: The Ancestor Cell) When Gallifrey's suns shined on the Panopticon, the interior glowed turquoise. (PROSE: The Tomorrow Windows) The Panopticon's ceiling was so high that clouds formed near it, and sometimes it rained. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors, Warmonger)

Also in ancient times, the Pythia used panoptics placed throughout the city to watch over it. (PROSE: Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible)

Behind the scenes

 * The name (derived from Greek: "pan" meaning "all" and "Opticon" meaning "view") was coined by Jeremy Bentham for a revolutionary approach to the way prisons should be designed.