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Parliament Buildings

The architecture of politics in Europe

Edited by Sophia Psarra, Uta Staiger, and Claudia Sternberg

ISBN: 9781800085343

Publication: October 30, 2023

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As political polarisation 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, behavioural psychology, anthropology and political science to raise a host of challenging questions. How do parliament buildings give physical form to norms and practices, to behaviours, 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 remodelled four parliament buildings in Europe, it provides the first comparative, multi-disciplinary study of parliament buildings across Europe and across history.

Praise for Parliament Buildings

‘In its totality, this is an invaluable book, both as a comprehensive review of the wider implications of architecture and building in culture and society, and as a specific resource in the understanding of one highly specialised, but profoundly significant building type.’
Dean Hawkes, Cardiff University and University of Cambridge

‘Symbols of history and of hope, theatres of struggle, cradles of consensus: parliamentary buildings, as these diverse essays show, both reflect our democracies and can help them function better.’
David Anderson, House of Lords

‘Parliament Buildings is a brilliant interdisciplinary exploration of a fascinating topic. Theoretically sophisticated, empirically rich and historically informed, it demonstrates the multiple ways in which politics and the built environment intersect, and sheds light on the symbolic and material practices central to contemporary representative politics.’
Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge

Sophia Psarra is Professor at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL.

Uta Staiger is Associate Professor of European Studies, Director of the European Institute and Global Strategic Academic Advisor (Europe) at UCL.

Claudia Sternberg is Principal Research Fellow and Head of Academic Programmes at the UCL European Institute.

List of figures
List of tables
List of contributors
Acknowledgements

1 Introduction: parliament buildings and the architecture of politics in Europe
Sophia Psarra, Uta Staiger, Claudia Sternberg

Part 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

Part 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

Part 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

Part 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

Part 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

**Part VI: The spatial productions 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

Part 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

Part VIII: Building parliaments for the future

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 Berlin
David Nelson

33 A natural gathering place: the National Assembly for Wales – the Senedd, 1998-2004
Ivan Harbour

Index

Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge

David Anderson, House of Lords

Format: Open Access PDF