An interdisciplinary study of how the physical space of parliament buildings influences politics.
As political polarization undermines confidence in the shared values and established constitutional orders of many nations, it is imperative that we explore how parliaments are to stay relevant and accessible to the citizens whom they serve. The rise of modern democracies is thought to have found physical expression in the staged unity of the parliamentary seating plan. However, the built forms alone cannot give sufficient testimony to the exercise of power in political life.
Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioral psychology, anthropology, and political science to raise a host of challenging questions. How do parliament buildings give physical form to norms and practices, behaviors, rituals, identities, and imaginaries? How are their spatial forms influenced by the political cultures they accommodate? What kinds of histories, politics, and morphologies do the diverse European parliaments share, and how do their political trajectories intersect?
This volume offers an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe. Including contributions from architects who have designed or remodeled four parliament buildings in Europe, it provides the first comparative, multi-disciplinary study of parliament buildings across Europe and across history.
As political polarization undermines confidence in the shared values and established constitutional orders of many nations, it is imperative that we explore how parliaments are to stay relevant and accessible to the citizens whom they serve. The rise of modern democracies is thought to have found physical expression in the staged unity of the parliamentary seating plan. However, the built forms alone cannot give sufficient testimony to the exercise of power in political life.
Parliament Buildings brings together architecture, history, art history, history of political thought, sociology, behavioral psychology, anthropology, and political science to raise a host of challenging questions. How do parliament buildings give physical form to norms and practices, behaviors, rituals, identities, and imaginaries? How are their spatial forms influenced by the political cultures they accommodate? What kinds of histories, politics, and morphologies do the diverse European parliaments share, and how do their political trajectories intersect?
This volume offers an eclectic exploration of the complex nexus between architecture and politics in Europe. Including contributions from architects who have designed or remodeled four parliament buildings in Europe, it provides the first comparative, multi-disciplinary study of parliament buildings across Europe and across history.
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Table of Contents
List of figuresList of tablesList of contributorsAcknowledgements1 Introduction: parliament buildings and the architecture of politics in Europe Sophia Psarra, Uta Staiger, Claudia Sternberg Section I: Rhythms of time and space 2 Making use of space: the unseen impact of mixing informally Philip Norton 3 Rhythms of navigating time and space in the UK House of Commons Emma Crewe 4 The ephemeral architecture of socioenvironmental practices in the UK Houses of Parliament, 1836-1966 Henrik Schoenefeldt 5 Inhabiting the Palais Bourbon together: sharing, allocating and regulating parliamentary space among its multiple users at the French National Assembly Jonathan Chibois Section II: A contemporary parliament in a historical building 6 Trapping the architectural imagination: restoration, renewal and denial at Westminster Matthew Flinders 7 ‘It was as though a spell has been cast on them’: the relationship between the Palace of Westminster and the UK Parliament Alexandra Meakin 8 Symbolic representation in public space, and the UK Parliament’s corporate identities Alex Prior 9.The UK Parliament as a historical space for women Mari Takayanagi 10.Parliament and the language of political agency in Disraeli’s ‘Young England’ trilogy: a corpus linguistic approach Sam Griffiths, Alexander von Lünen Section III: The material structure of parliaments 11 The Palace of Westminster and the Reichstag Building: spatial form and political culture Sophia Psarra and Gustavo Maldonado-Gil 12 Democracy by glass and concrete? The architecture of German state parliaments Patrick Theiner, Julia Schwanholz 13 The architecture of political representation: a historical review Remieg Aerts, Carla Hoetink Section IV: Political transitions and constructions of legitimacy 14 Architectures of power and the Romanian transition: from the House of the Republic to the Palace of the Parliament Iulia Statica, Gruia Badescu 15 ‘Make it look more democratic, Mikhail Mikhailovich!’ Potemkin parliamentarism and the project to redesign the Russian State Duma Michal Murawski, Ben Noble 16 Absorbing Cold War heritage: from a Stalinist skyscraper to a seat of EU democracy? Emilia Kaleva, Aneta Vasileva 17 Barra (get out)! Agency for public resistance at the parliament of Malta Andrew Borg Wirth, Michael Zerafa Section V: Mediated parliament and digital interactions 18 Mediating politics and architecture: the European Parliament from television to the digital age Pol Esteve Castelló, Dennis Pohl 19 Knife edge: Abingdon Street Gardens and its field of vision James Benedict Brown 20 Continuous virtual surveillance in a new space? Monitory democracy at Westminster Ben Worthy, Stefani Langehennig SECTION VI: The spatial production of assemblies 21 Shaping and expressing politics: a comparative study of national parliament buildings within the European Union Naomi Gibson, Sophia Psarra, Gustavo Maldonado Gil 22 From thing to revolutionary assembly: architectural systems of gathering Harald Trapp 23 Debate as a philosophical category and the question of architectural framing in the context of the Westminster parliamentary edifice Gordana Fontana-Giusti 24 Degrees of opposition and cooperation: how seating plans and parliament layouts reflect and give rise to political cultures Kerstin Sailer Section VII: Sovereignty, scale and languages of representation 25 Peripheral parliament: sovereignty, indigenous rights, and political representation in the architecture of the Sámi Parliament of Finland Samuel Singler, Sofia Singler 26 Forms of parliamentarism in modern Greece and their architectural-spatial reflections: convergence, debate, imposition Amalia Kotsaki 27 The opening ceremony of the Swedish Riksdag Tormod Otter Johansen Section VIII: Building parliaments for the future Guest editor: Jeremy Melvin 28 Section introduction Jeremy Melvin 29 Westminster, its palace and the House of Commons: an outline of the House of Commons Chamber and its context Jeremy Melvin 30 Touchstones for a twenty-first century parliamentary building: a temporary chamber for the House of Commons, UK Paul Monaghan 31 Integrating the building into the land: the Scottish Parliament Benedetta Tagliabue 32 A continuation with history and a significant new experience: the Reichstag in BerlinDavid Nelson 33 A natural gathering place: the National Assembly for Wales - the Senedd, 1998-2004 Ivan Harbour Index