POST TRANSPARENCY

POST TRANSPARENCY

Democratic Architecture in British Town Halls

Hugh McEwen

2011

contents

introduction

page 2

Defining Democratic Architecture

page 6

The Myth of Transparency

page 12

Transparent Iconography

page 24

The Architecture of Representational Democracy

page 38

A New Democratic Architecture

page 58

conclusion

page 74

bibliography

page 78

glossary

page 79

images

page 80

introduction

2

introduction

If transparent symbolism in town halls has failed as a democratic language, is it possible to learn from

historic democratic architecture in order to propose a new democratic architecture?

This essay proposes ways in which architecture may be made to act more democratically. To be able

to do this it first formulates a precise definition of democratic architecture. This is used to critique the

prevalent deployment of transparent symbolism in English town halls since 1945, through studies of

Haringey Town Hall and City Hall. With readings of Learning from Las Vegas and Politics of the Envelope,

transparent symbolism is located as an iconography that is able to suggest access, while physically

denying it. To suggest an alternative the essay returns to 1935 and the beginning of modern town hall

building in the United Kingdom. A critique of Leeds and Manchester Town Halls finds that the

representational symbolism used by both is more successful in my definition of democratic architecture.

This research is then shown to be applicable to contemporary architecture through the study of

Hillingdon Civic Centre and my own work. The application of this historical analysis provides a series of

tactics that might be used in democratic architecture.

The critique of transparent architecture sits within the criticism of modernism from the 1960s

onwards. This began with the documentation of the failure of modern ideals and soon proposed a

postmodern language to address these shortcomings. Learning from Las Vegas and Charles Jencks’

writing are used to provide a theoretical framework and textual research for the criticism.

Concurrently, contemporary work by Alejandro Zaera Polo and Ludger Schwarte brings this

framework and criticism up to date respectively. A much more deeply researched, but entirely German

oriented and un-propositional, discussion of transparency and democracy can be found in Deborah

Barnstone’s book The Transparent State.

This paper intends to use historical research on a typology of building to be able to create an

iconographic study. Throughout this iconographic study of town halls empirical evidence relates the

political impact of the architecture to my definition of democratic architecture. This is supported by

architectural analysis and criticism to form a theoretical framework for my research.

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1. The plans of Haringey Town Hall and City Hall, Leeds Town Hall and Manchester Town Hall, Hillingdon Civic Centre and The Aylesbury Town Hall at 1:2500

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Defining Democratic Architecture

6

Defining Democratic Architecture

Throughout history, citizens have been systematically removed from the architecture of democracy

both physically and symbolically. The ultimate democracy of the Pnyx – the hill where the whole of

Athens’ citizenry could meet to vote, shown opposite – was replaced by the Greek Forum which

moved people away from the place of democratic debate. This in turn was replaced by the Roman

Forum which reduced their power to a veto, rather than a discussion. The removal of citizens

presented a problem as to where they should go. The Italian piazza replicated the public spaces of the

forum, but denuded it of any explicitly political process. The viewing galleries of the French parliament

were introduced to keep the public ‘up out of the way’ and then scaled down, while in the English

parliament strangers have always been excluded.1

Once citizens had been physically excluded from the architecture of democracy, there was a gradual

removal of the symbolism of citizens from it. The domestic symbolism of early parliamentary buildings

and moothalls was replaced by nationally symbolic architecture of the 18th and 19th century, illustrated

to the right, only to be whitewashed by the modern movement in the 20th century. This led to the

architecture of democracy resorting to providing allegories of over-arching concepts, and since 1945

the architecture of democracy has used transparency as a language to display ideals of openness,

approachability and accountability.2

This trend of exclusion has followed the increase in population and centralisation of power, whereby

city states were combined into republics, then aristocratic monarchy and now representational

democracy. This has necessitated a reduction in the percentage of citizens in democratic buildings –

from 100% in the Pnyx to 0.00001% in the Houses of Parliament. These two trends make it imperative

that the buildings that house democratic processes act as democratically as they can.

1 For a more sustained argument about the removal of public space, see Ludger Schwarte, ‘Parliamentary Public’, Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (eds), Making Things Public : Atmospheres of Democracy (Cambridge : MIT Press, 2005) pp 786-7972 Again, for a more sustained description, see Charles Jencks, ‘The Architecture of Democracy : The Hidden Tradition’, Architectural Design, vol. 57 nos. 9/10 (1987) pp 9-2

7

2. A model of the Pnyx, Athens

3. An aerial photograph of The Houses of Parliament, London

8

It is impossible for an architectural style to represent a political ideology or vice versa, as critics and

cartoonists have illustrated.3 It is, however, possible to analyse the use of particular architectural

languages in a building with relation to the processes that occur within it. By narrowing the scope of

what is defined by the notion of democracy in architecture a more directed critique can be developed.

I will therefore define democratic architecture as a building that both symbolises democracy and

contains space for citizens to make use of. There have been many methods of symbolising democracy –

nationalistic, historic and cosmic to name but a few4

Public access to democratic buildings is necessary because of the symbolic and practical aspects that it

encompasses. The democracy we live in today is empowered by the citizens, and these same citizens

should be integrated into the spaces of policy discussion and decision making. At the same time, the

public should feel an ownership of the building through these spaces and others, which could include

halls or wedding rooms, meeting spaces or plazas, but must be accessible. However to the wider

metropolis, the symbolism of this access is almost as important as actually being able to get inside.

Those that do not have the time to visit in person should understand the potential for public access by

a commensurate symbolism if it. The symbolism then acts allegorically to display the public use of the

building. This gives the building a civic role by displaying its purpose to the exterior. By illustrating a focal

point for government, it provides a place to see the outcome of taxation, a place for scrutiny and a

place for protest.

– however this essay will concentrate on

transparency and representation, which will be elaborated on in due course.

As stated, this supposition of democratic architecture must be related to the buildings that contain

democratic processes. Within England, the most significant of these is the town hall, around which the

study will be based. Town halls are less concerned with the nationalistic pretexts of parliamentary

buildings and have been a tool for decentralising power and increasing the effect of democracy. Their

production over different periods of time, but of comparable function and size, creates a typology that

can be critiqued in terms of public space, while they also span the history of the two symbolic methods

of representation and transparency that I have identified. By discussing the success and failure of town

halls in terms of democratic architecture, I will propose elements that can be used in democratic

architecture.

3 “There exists neither authoritarian nor democratic architecture. There exists only authoritarian and democratic ways of producing and using architecture.” Léon Krier at the UIA XV (Cairo, 1985)4 For more explanations of nationalist and historic, see Deyan Sudjic and Helen Jones, Architecture and Democracy (London: Laurence King, 2001), for cosmic see Charles Jencks, ‘Open Government in a Cynical Age’, Curt Fentress, Civic Builders(Chichester : Wiley, 2002) pp 26-31

9

4. A cartoon showing the difference between Fascist architecture and Communist architecture, by Osbert Lancaster

The Myth of Transparency

12

The Myth of Transparency

“transparency has proven a politically naïve tactic”

Alejandro Zaera Polo5

It is perhaps telling that I should begin this critique with the building that now houses the Haringey

London Borough Council, embroiled as it is with the blaming and shaming that has followed the

exposure in 2008 of its failure to act before the death of Baby P, despite him being seen by numerous

council workers. This bureaucratic ineptitude was outshone, just six months later, by the MPs expenses

scandal in Westminster. Here, rather than there being a chain of errors because of a system that its

players could only follow by the book as in Haringey, elected members of parliament deliberately used

public money for personal gain, leading to three MPs facing jail sentences.

These two shocking episodes highlight the era of accountability, rather than responsibility, that

government finds itself in. Citizens have lost faith in the ability of government, both local and national,

to act in their interest. Research by the Audit Commission and MORI found that where most people in

the local community trust their hospital or police department, just half have faith in their council.6

Turnout at the Mayor of London and GLA election in 2008 was 45%,7

When the democratic representatives of the people cannot be trusted, how can the system be

trusted? It is obvious that the unwieldy political machine requires a way of regaining respect from the

community. But how can this happen when, all around, historically responsible organisations face a crisis

of trust, such as the military after inefficient procurement and the banking sector since the recession. As

I will show, this cannot be through the display of transparency enacted by modernist architecture.

while the 2010 general election

produced a government for which no-one voted.

5 Alejandro Zaera Polo, ‘The Politics of the Envelope : A Political Critique of Materials’, Volume, n. 17 (Fall 2008) pp 76-105, p 906 Ben Rogers, Reinventing the Town Hall : A Handbook (London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2004), p 227 The Electoral Commission, The Greater London Authority elections 2008 : Report on the administration of the 1 May 2008 elections (London: The Electoral Commission, July 2008) p 68

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5. A photograph of the exterior of Haringey Town Hall, the council chamber is behind the balcony in the foreground, the entrance is beneath the awning in the background

6. A photograph of the entrance hall of Haringey Town Hall, to the left is the curved stair and bridge, to the right is the entrance under the awning

Ground1.

2.3.

First4.

Second5.

Third

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1. Entrance2. Council Stair3. Public Stair4. Council Chamber5. Public Stair

7. A plan of Haringey Town Hall

8. A map of the site around Haringey Town Hall at 1:2500

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Haringey London Borough Council is housed in what was designed as Wood Green Municipal

Buildings. This was not the first modernist town hall to be built, but it was the first to directly discuss

transparency. Indeed: “lightness and transparency are emphasised”.8

In 1938, Sir John Brown, A. E. Henson & Partners won the competition to design a new town hall for

Wood Green Borough Council on a different site to the one that the final building sits on. The

competition winning scheme was re-drawn in 1946 after the project was moved to the present site

and in 1950 these plans were again revised. The final proposal included offices and a council chamber,

two public halls, a library and a small gallery, all arranged around a public courtyard. However, only the

offices and council chamber were built between 1956 and 1958. None of the public spaces were

realised.9 From the outside the offset doorway suggests a more personable entrance and “the entrance

hall and council chamber are expressed externally by almost full height glazing, suggesting openness and

approachability.”10 Once inside the steel frame building and aluminium framed windows, the internal

glazing towards the council chamber and the landscape of stairs and circulation is intended to display

unimpeded participation.11

However, this language of literal transparency

The large expanses of modern transparent materials are well executed, and

the building still functions efficiently, since it was retained as the town hall when Wood Green became

part of Haringey in 1965.

12

As mentioned earlier, none of the planned public aspects of the civic centre were built. While the

town hall aims for accessibility, the only public part of the building is the public gallery in the council

chamber and this is reached, not via the grand spiral stair or the sweeping first floor bridge, but by the

back stairs to the right of them. Sitting a storey above the council chamber and pierced by two huge

cylinders, it feels like an out of the way space to keep spectators. There are no other external or

internal public spaces for use by citizens.

is flawed in democratic symbolism. For example, while

the walls from the atrium towards the council chamber are glass, there is still a wood panelled wall

before you enter the chamber, eliminating any views through. All of the glass doors that are accessible

from the central atrium are locked by swipe cards, only allowing employees of the council to use them.

Finally, due to the council chamber being on the first floor, it is impossible to see inside from the street.

The symbolism that the building relies on therefore fails in its execution.

8 British Architectural Library , London’s Town Halls : The architecture of Local government from 1840 to the present (Swindon: English Heritage, 1999), p 309 Ibid. p 4910 Ibid. p 3011 Ibid. p 5012 For a full discussion of transparency see Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, ‘Transparency : Literal and Phenomenal’, Perspecta,vol. 8 (1963) pp 45-54 and Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004) pp 286-8

9. A plan of the proposed civic amenities

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10. A photograph towards the council chamber from the bridge

11. A photograph towards the entrance hall from the council chamber, note the wooden partitions, the columns and the separate entrance to the public seating in the top left corner.

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12. A photograph of a keypad access door from the bridge

13. A photograph of the doors to the council chamber broken open

14. A photograph of the curved stair to the council chamber

15. A photograph of placards in the stair to the public seating

20

Through these examples it can be seen that transparency has been applied as a false symbolism –

since it does not show what the building actually does, it shows an ideal – therefore this building does

not work in my definition of democratic architecture. The hollow promises of the transparent

symbolism are summed up by the writer Ludger Schwarte in his essay Parliamentary Public, about a

politically engaged public and their possibility to interact with the representatives of democracy within

the spaces created for parliaments.

“The press gallery, the spectators’ gallery, the television broadcasts and the glass architecture of

modern parliament buildings neutralize this public to the extent that they merely symbolize it and

prevent a performance.” 13

The glass architecture is not the reason for the council’s failure in the handling of the Baby P case, but

it is placed in the context of these shortcomings as an unacceptable and incorrect language. It hasn’t

made the council any more accountable for their actions, or provided an alternative to the possibility

for citizens to hold them accountable. Thus the architectural symbolism is effectively for the good of

the council, letting them think that their actions are transparent while they operate behind closed

doors. This effect is made obvious by the way protesters against the Local Authority budget cuts in

2011 felt it necessary to occupy the council chamber. Meanwhile the budget was ratified in the canteen

as police stood guard on the glass doors.

The design of this town hall marks a significant departure from the rather dated neo-Georgian designs

that were still prevalent at the time, like Barking Town Hall opened in 1958.14 This was made especially

pertinent as it is quite probable that the original competition winning scheme by Sir John Brown, A. E.

Henson & Partners in 1938 was itself neo-Georgian, with no large expanses of glass. This supposition is

borne out by the practice’s work for Friern Barnet Urban District Council, winning the competition to

rebuild the council’s offices in 1937 with a simple neo-Georgian design, just one year before their

competition winning scheme for Wood Green.15 The design for Friern Barnet was carried out from

1939 to 1941, while as we know the Wood Green scheme was subsequently redesigned twice. So

what prompted the radical change from neo-Georgian with heavy set, brick walls dressed with stone,

to continental modernism with new ideals? Given that the production of large areas of glazing had been

technically possible in England since the mid 1800s with the construction of Crystal Palace, what made

the use of transparent symbolism so convincing after the war that it prompted a complete redesign of

the building?

13 Ludger Schwarte, op cit.. p 79414 British Architectural Library , op cit.. p 2915 Ibid. p 36

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16. A photograph of the occupation of the council chamber on the 24th of February 2011

17. A photograph of the police ordering demonstrators to vacate the town hall

18. A photograph of protesters gathered outside the town hall

Transparent Iconography

24

Transparent Iconography

“it dematerializes without signifying in any traditional way”

Fredric Jameson16

To understand why transparent symbolism is so potent and what it actually symbolises we have to go

back to its origin. The first use of material transparency as an allegory for political transparency was

introduced by Hannes Meyer and Hans Witter in their 1927 competition design for the League of

Nations.17

“No more back corridors for backstairs diplomacy, but open glazed rooms for the public negotiations

of honest men.”

In his description of the project, Meyer stated that was a building with

18

Meyer explicitly linked glass’ transparency and its ability to expose the interior of a building to a

symbolic notion that this would allow people to more easily understand and interact with the

democratic process. As Germany fell into totalitarianism, the use of glass as a democratic language was

lost and did not resurface until the end of the Second World War. This re-emergence was in the

immediate fallout from Germany’s defeat and its division into West and East. West Germany wanted

to display its democratic values in opposition to the fascist regime it had replaced and the communist

one it coexisted with. In 1949 Hans Schwippert completed the transparent plenary chamber for the

new West German parliament. This provided a new meeting place for the Bundestag and recalled

Meyer and Witter’s designs and ideals. However, shown opposite are:

“Spectators trying to following [sic] proceedings of the inaugural session of West Germany’s new

parliament in Bonn, 7th September 1949. Though housed in a new glass and steel building, the chamber

did not include room for a public gallery, so benches were erected outside – an encapsulation of the

situation of ordinary citizens everywhere.” 19

16 Fredric Jameson, The Brick and the Balloon : Architecture, Idealism and Land Speculation, New Left Review, vol. a, nos. 228 (1998) pp 25-46, p4417 While Bruno Taut’s pavilion in 1914 expressed a desire for a new culture through glass architecture, this was not explicitly an architecture for a political process.18Deborah Ascher Barnstone, The transparent state : architecture and politics in postwar Germany (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005) p5019 Ben Rogers, op cit. p 12

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19. An axonometric of Meyer and Witter’s proposal for the League of Nations

20. A photograph of public seating outside Schwippert’s Bundestag

26

While the symbolism of visual access was deployed, the building did not fulfil the basic requirements

for public access.20 Thus, if transparent architecture is acting allegorically, but not democratically, what is

its true function? I propose that from the beginning of its use as a language in democratic architecture,

transparency has never been a symbol, it has actually been an icon. To explain this statement, and to

talk more precisely about the difference between a symbol and an icon, I will use the differentiation

between simile and metaphor.21

Both simile and metaphor come from the analysis of literature, but are liberally applied to the arts. A

simile – from the Latin similis, meaning “like” – makes a comparison between two things in order to

better understand their common properties. Metaphor comes from the Greek metaphora, meaning “a

transfer” – literally a transfer of one word’s meaning into another word. A metaphor replaces one

word with another, but does not draw any parallels between the meanings of the words, while a simile

does claim a similarity between one thing and another, and both words are retained. Similes are a

weaker replacement of meaning – because they don’t require the initial word to be removed – but a

stronger illustration of parallels between the two meanings. If we think of a symbol as a simile and an

icon as a metaphor, then the difference is easier to explain. If transparent iconography acts as a

metaphor rather than a simile, then it states that transparency in architecture is transparency in politics.

It is very obvious that these are not the same, and that a “blind switch” has occurred. However, by

understanding that this has happened we can see how it is able to simultaneously suggests public

access, yet physically deny it. Transparent iconography acts as an image of democracy and this is made

explicit in the Foster and Partners designed Reichstag, completed in 1999, which is implicitly placed

within the history of the architecture of democracy.

“The renovated building also cleverly combines the vertical emphasis (with its connotations of higher

purpose and cosmic connections) found in the chambers of Chandigarh and Dacca with the horizontal

emphasis (with its secular and democratic connotations) found in Behnisch’s chamber at Bonn.” 22

By directly inserting the building into a history of democratic architecture and using transparent

iconography, it is an absolute icon. It is not something to be discussed, but something to be read as

being democratic, since it never tangibly delivers its promises of free access. The multiple layers of glass

in fact divide citizens from the location of democratic discussion, as can be seen opposite.

“More than anything, Norman Foster’s renovation of the Reichstag as the seat of the Bundestag casts

doubt upon German transparency ideology and its near mythical association with democracy.” 23

“Security in effect means ‘look, don’t speak or act’; the public realm is tantalizingly transparent yet all

the more removed.” 24

20 This was only fully addressed with the architect Günter Behnisch’s remodelling of the site in 1992.21 To briefly mention the religious origins of symbol and icon, in Protestantism wine represents the blood of Jesus and is therefore a symbol, in Catholicism wine (following transubstantiation) is the blood of Christ and is an icon.22 Peter Buchanan, ‘When Democracy Builds’, David Jenkins (ed), Norman Foster Works 4 (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2004) pp248-55, p 25223 Deborah Ascher Barnstone, op cit.. p 17524 Charles Jencks, ‘Open Government in a Cynical Age’, op cit., p 28

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21. A model of the chamber in Chandigarh, the chamber in Dacca and a photograph of the entrance to Behnisch’s Bundestag

22. A section through Foster’s Reichstag and a photograph of the layered glass inside

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Designed by Norman Foster25 from 1998 and opened in 2002, London, City Hall continues the

language of the Reichstag and relies on the iconography of transparency.26

To place my own critique of this building as a purely iconic structure within previous writings, I will use

the analysis of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour in Learning from Las Vegas and Alejandro Zaera Polo

from The Politics of The Envelope. After thoroughly documenting the Las Vegas Strip, Venturi, Scott

Brown and Izenour draw the following conclusions from their research:

The building is composed of

(from top to bottom) the mayor’s office and a public hall, ten floors of offices and the council chamber

with a spiral ramp above, and beneath grade lies the café and a wing of committee rooms.

“Where the architectural systems of space, structure, and program are submerged and distorted by

an overall symbolic form. This kind of building-becoming -sculpture we call the duck … The duck is the

special building that is a symbol” 27

The iconic, duck like,28

In his essay, Zaera Polo proposes four building envelopes, flat-horizontal, spherical, flat-vertical, and

vertical. Both the Reichstag and City Hall have spherical envelopes – indeed City Hall’s geometry comes

from a distorted sphere

nature of City Hall is demonstrated by the submission of function to its form.

The iconography of transparency is carried through so rigorously that (to refer to Venturi, Scott Brown

and Izenour’s three categories) space, structure and programme are completely at its behest. To deal

with these respectively, any spaces that need to be enclosed are placed underground, the structural

steel mesh removes the need for solid shear walls and the public space in the building is placed so that

it, inconveniently, faces away from the river, while the council chamber faces forward, all of which can

be seen in the section.

29– meaning that they have roughly equivalent dimensions in all directions, and

are perceived in section as readily as in plan. He states that this type of envelope generally corresponds

to public buildings, including city halls, and that symbolism is the primary concern when designing a

spherical building.30 This is true of City hall, but because of the importance of symbolism in these

buildings Zaera Polo is critical of the use of transparency as an icon, proposing an alternative in the

form of his faciality.31 Zaera Polo’s argument therefore identifies City Hall as an icon through its

language, applied because of its form.

25 Foster’s own political ambitions perhaps fuelled the competition for and design of the Reichstag and City Hall, becoming as he did a Lord in 1999. This turned out to be a much shorter than ‘life’ peerage, as he left the House of Lords in 2010 so as toavoid British tax. His use of the symbolic title, while denying being part of Britain, parallels his easy use of the iconic language of transparency.26 “City Hall is one of the capital’s most symbolically important new projects. Advancing themes explored earlier in the Reichstag, it expresses the transparency and accessibility of the democratic process”, David Jenkins and Thomas Weaver (eds.) Catalogue : Foster and Partners (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2005), p 18827 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas : The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Cambridge : MIT Press, 1977), p 8728 “examples of Ducks and Decorated Sheds might be these: Norman Foster’s London City Hall as Duck, a completely symbolic expression of a new spirit of democracy with its expansive spiralling walkways and partitions of glass all round” Daniel Barnes, Duck, Decorated Shed, or Duck-Rabbit: The Problem of the Portsmouth Tricorn Centre (Cardiff University: AHRB Graduate Conference, 2005), p 629 David Jenkins and Thomas Weaver (eds.), op cit. p 18830 Alejandro Zaera Polo, op cit. p 8731 Ibid. p 88

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23. A monumental photograph of City Hall

24. A drawing of the Duck and Decorated Shed types

25. A drawing of the vertical, flat-vertical, horizontal and spherical types

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1. 2.

2.

3.

5.

4.

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7.

8. 9.

1. Mayor of London’s Office2. London’s Living Room3. Offices4. Spiral Ramp5. Council Chamber6. Public Ramp7. Entrance8. Committee Room9. Cafe (behind)

26. A section through City Hall and a plan of London’s Living Room to scale

27. A map of the site around City Hall at 1:2500

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These critiques both use an analysis of the building’s form to decide whether it is acting as an icon or

not, rather than commenting on the symbolism applied to this form. However, by identifying City Hall

as an icon for these reasons, the choice of an iconic language of transparency is placed in the context of

a number of design choices to make the building act as an icon, rather than in a democratic way.

Even the words used by the GLA identify its building as an icon:

“Designed as a building for Londoners, City Hall has several features demonstrating the fact that the

GLA provides open and see-through government for London. These features include a glass exterior

allowing Londoners to look in and symbolising the fact that the GLA’s work is done in the open for all

to see.” 32

For all the claims and aspirations made by the transparent iconography, the building does not live up

to them.

“The imagery of the people above their representatives, it must be said, is slightly contrived.

Councillors meet for debate in the chamber only monthly, when the public is not allowed on the ramp

anyway. And the real power-house of the building - the Mayor's office - is, conventionally, on the top

floor.” 33

Moreover, the public is only ever allowed onto the spiral ramp once a year – during open house

weekend – rendering it nothing more than a sculpture to commemorate democracy, filling an atrium in

the building. This would be acceptable if this was truly the case; that it was a piece of art. It is not art, it

is a ramp designed for access and neutered from use. Inclined planes have intrinsic political

connotations,34

The location of the mayor’s office belies the true function of the GLA, as a body to hold the

executive power of the mayor in check. The positioning of the council chamber on the edge of the

building also alludes to this, City Hall sees the furthest progression of the trend to externalise the

council chamber. Originally town halls placed the council chamber near the centre of the building, but

by the turn of the 20th century it had moved to the edges, before being shifted to the exterior after the

Second World War. In City Hall the glass fronted council chamber is not to internalise the public, it is

to externalise the possibility of discussion.

and its disuse explicitly prevents the possibility of seeing into the bureaucracy within the

building. More symbolically, the ramp that proceeds from the entrance to the inaccessible spiral ramp is

actually held away from the mass of the council chamber, as can be seen in the section. The structure is

kept away from interacting, as are the people.

35

32 Greater London Authority, Inside City Hall : Home of London’s Government (London : GLA, 2008), p 333 http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/cityhall/index.htm, accessed 24/02/201134 See texts by Paul Virilio and Claude Parent on Architecture Principe35 Made obvious by Mayor of London Boris Johnson’s reliance on consultants.

28. A photograph of people on the ramp inside City Hall, which occurs once a year.

33

34

Much like the ramp, the democratic possibilities of other spaces are reneged on. Next to the Mayor’s

office, on the top floor, but facing away from the river is the small public hall, or ‘London’s Living Room’

as it is marketed. It is anything but ‘London’s’, costing £5897 to hire for an evening.36 The committee

rooms could be particularly effective, since they look out through the publically accessible café into the

public amphitheatre outside37

As Deborah Barnstone comments, “Today, transparency and democracy continue to be linked

together even though they are ultimately not related.”

at equal height. Symptomatically, this glazing is obscured by gauze blinds

that block views in. Since the transparent architecture of City Hall fails to be backed up by public

spaces, the building is not a piece of democratic architecture under my definition.

38

Transparent architecture is an image of democracy, not a symbol of it. However, it has come to be

understood as an effective icon and deployed so many times that it is now the accepted language for

democratic architecture. Behind this façade it has become a lip service, since the buildings rarely

provide adequate public space or the chance for interaction. They allow the elected and appointed

members of our local government to act behind a camouflage of accountability. By being transparent,

the buildings excuse an opacity of government.

More than this, the use of literal and

metaphorical transparency in the Communist Palast der Republik in Berlin and the Fascist Casa del Fascio

in Como shows how transparency has, in fact, never been a purely democratic language.

36 London’s Living Room, Hire Fees (2009-10)37 The exterior amphitheatre, designed by Townshend landscape architects, holds regular, well attended, free events in the summer. The café and the single main entrance ensure that all visitors and appointed members have the chance to intermingle.38 Deborah Ascher Barnstone, op cit.. p 232

35

29. A photograph of the Palast Der Republik at night

30. A photograph of the Casa Del Fascio at night

The Architecture of Representational Democracy

38

The Architecture of Representational Democracy

“civic display and administrative function welded closely together”

Colin Cunningham39

Since transparent symbolism can be shown to be inconsistent with democratic architecture, I will now

examine representational symbolism for its relationship to democracy. Representational symbolism

displays the symbols of citizenry to the city. These are symbols that the population own, and therefore

impart a common ownership to the whole of the building – which I will explain below with regards to

clock towers. Thus the symbolism displays the purpose of the building to the exterior, but makes no

direct link between the exterior and the interior. This allows the building to have a number of efficient

public and private spaces within, and an effective public display without.

To assess representational symbolism it is key to return to the beginning of true local democracy and

the Reform Act of 1835 which established the scale of local government that we have in Britain today.

This Parliamentary Bill provided the necessity for new town halls and it changed the relatively

centralised, aristocratic governance of the country to a more devolved one. This gave the towns and

cities of England the opportunity to express themselves and their inhabitants in their architecture. Thus

town halls became reflections of the enlightenment, designed as beacons to speak to the populace on

civic themes and provide space in which cultural events would be held.

To exemplify this period, Manchester and Leeds Town Halls will be used as case studies. Though built

in competing styles and with certain taxonomic differences, they both indicate how representational

symbolism can be used to create an architecture of democracy.

39 P 62, Colin Cunningham and Prudence Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse, 1830-1905 : Biography of a Practice (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1992)

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31. A photograph of Manchester Town Hall, before a student protest on the 29th of January 2011

40

Completed in 1858 to the designs of Cuthbert Brodrick, Leeds Town Hall sits on The Headrow

(formerly Park Row) to the North of the city centre. It was designed to replace the Court House,

which had until then functioned as the epicentre of local administration. The growth of Leeds twinned

with the 1835 act meant that a new building was required. “The brief was for a building type such as

did not yet exist in England”40 to house the council, the court, a public hall and a police station,41 all

whilst creating a new civic centre for the local government . After the need for a new town hall had

been decided in 1850, Brodrick won the competition and construction began in 1853.42 Nowadays it

still contains council offices, and is also used as a concert hall, conference centre and registry office –

the council having moved its chamber to Leeds Civic Hall in 1933.43

The requirement for a new town hall in Manchester was established in 1864,44 and Alfred

Waterhouse was appointed after a two stage competition held between 1867 and 1868. However,

Waterhouse would continue to refine the town hall through its start on site in 1868,45 past its opening

in 1877 and right up until its completion in 1880.46

While Leeds Town Hall is designed in a neoclassical manner with strong French Baroque influences,

Manchester is of gothic revival with modern elements. Though each have different architectural

expressions, there are certain salient points that are similar between the two. It is not clear whether

this is because Leeds was so lauded after its completion that Waterhouse was influenced by it or

whether both were reacting to a new typology using similar methods. Since there is no literature that

explicitly links the two architects, it is safe to presume that the designs were entirely the result of each

architect’s work.

The town hall was designed to house a large public

hall and the various municipal authorities required by a city as large as Manchester. In 1938 the council

chamber moved to the extension built adjacent the town hall, with the ever increasing need for office

space spread between the two.

47

40 Derek Linstrum, Towers and Colonnades: The Architecture of Cuthbert Brodrick (Leeds: The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, 1999), p1741 Susan Wrathmell with John Minnis, Leeds : Pevsner Architectural Guides (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), p 6242 Colin Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian Town Halls (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981), p 3843 Susan Wrathmell with John Minnis, op cit. p 8044 Colin Cunningham and Prudence Waterhouse, op cit. p 5345 Ibid. p 6046 John H.G. Archer, ‘A Classic of its Age’ John H.G. Archer (ed), Art and Architecture in Victorian Manchester : Ten Illustrations of patronage and practice (Manchester: Manchester university Press, 1985), p 14347 The best account of the competition for, and procurement of, Manchester Town Hall is offered by Cunningham in his book on Waterhouse, while Archer’s essay is more forthcoming about the re-designs of the building and the nuances of the architecture.

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32. A photograph of Leeds Town Hall

33. A photograph of Manchester Town Hall

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Moving from the centre to the periphery of the town halls, the largest room in each is the public hall,

placed in the middle of the building and accessed directly from the main entrance after having risen

from street level to the core of the building. Leeds’ public hall is shown opposite and illustrates the vast

number of people that it can hold. The siting and scale of these halls makes it obvious that space for

public events is essential to the architecture.

The town halls both have ring corridors that encircle this public hall – Leeds a rectangle, Manchester a

triangle, shown opposite – with spiral staircases at each corner. This was not an off the shelf solution to

the connection of various functions in an administrative building or town hall at the time, since the

majority were arranged in wings. The use of a cyclical circulation rather than a linear one is important.

By allowing non-hierarchical public circulation space throughout the whole of the building, there is an

ambiguous space created. This does away with the problem that Meyer sought to open up with his

glass walkways. Here there simply are no back corridors.

Sitting between the ring corridor and the façade is the council chamber, occupying the room to the

right of the main entrance in both, with the Mayor’s suite to the rear. Before the trend for externalising

the possibility of discussion, these chambers ensured that the site for democratic discussion was

embedded in the building. While in Brodrick’s design, up to 300 spectators could be accommodated

within the council chamber.48

The hall, corridors and council chamber show how public space orders the whole of the building.

Moving outside to the external space, both had carefully delineated public squares in front of the town

halls – Manchester because of the council’s stipulations, Leeds through the architect’s designs. In

Manchester this civic space replaced “a central area of small factories, seedy courts and back to back

houses”,49 beginning a municipal area that would extend South. While the square in Leeds “effectively

altered the balance of the whole town and led to a great development Northwards and Westwards

from City Square, the former centre.”50

The effect that the external spaces had on the surrounding fabric of the city, illustrates how important

they were. They provided breathing space within the dense pattern of industrial towns, much like a

park. Time has not diminished their effect and these public spaces are absolutely necessary in the

present day, as we exist in a time of the privatisation of public space by councils, through curtailment of

common rights,51 and companies, as in Canary Wharf and Camden.52 Indeed “common space has been

under attack – eroding, declining; probably at least since World War Two”.53

48 Derek Linstrum, op cit. p 18

The need for a civic space

for positive social and political functions, such as protest, has been highlighted with the wave of student

and public sector marches throughout the UK in 2010 and 2011.

49 John H.G. Archer, op cit. p 13050 Colin Cunningham, op cit. pp 174-551 More specifically drinking bans and leafleting rights, for more discussion see www.manifestoclub.com52 Camden high street is privately owned, while Canary Wharf goes as far as to have its own police force.53 Benjamin Barber, ‘Do We Live in an Age Where New Public Spaces Are Emerging?’, The Decline and Rise of Public Spaces(iTunes U: Hertie School of Governance, 2008)

38. A photograph of a concert in the public hall of Leeds Town Hall

39. A photograph of the ring corridor and a spiral staircase in Manchester Town Hall

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48

Their effect on everyday life is important and is poignantly summed up in a large quote from Ben

Rogers:

“A vibrant civic realm is an enjoyable thing in itself. It is good to saunter in a crowded park or sit in a

lively public square. Places that offer a vibrant civic realm will inevitably attract and retain investment.

More than that, however, an active civic life connects people in important ways and gives them a sense

of belonging. Where we are surrounded by buildings and spaces preserved from the past or built for

the future, we come to feel ourselves members of a community bigger than any single one of us, As we

get used to sharing spaces, we feel part of a shared world. Through talking in shops, hairdressers and

bus queues, we learn to know people different from ourselves. We feel trusted and we trust. The

networks made or strengthened through day-to-day interaction in shared public spaces are invaluable in

many ways; they are a source of pleasure in good times and help us out in times of need. They lessen

our chances of being attacked or becoming ill, and they improve our chances of getting a job. They

ensure that issues of public concern are discussed and action taken. They increase our willingness to

moderate our own convictions and sacrifice our interests to a larger good.” 54

This public good and social capital is as important now as it was when these town halls were built, and

contemporary commentators honestly believed this. For example Dr. John Deakin Heaton, Secretary of

the Leeds Improvement Society, stated that “If a noble municipal palace that might fairly vie with some

of the best town halls of the continent were to be erected in the middle of their hitherto squalid and

unbeautiful town, it would become a practical admonition to the populace of the value of beauty and

art, and in the course of time men would learn to live up to it.”55

54 Ben Rogers, op cit. p 2455 T. W. Reid (ed.) A Memoir of John Deakin Heaton, M.D. of Leeds (London 1883) quoted in Derek Linstrum, op cit. p 21

49

40. A photograph of Manchester Town Hall, before a student protest on the 29th of January 2011

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As is made apparent by this statement, the notion of public good was related, not just to the function

of the building, but also to its symbolism. If we work back from the outside to the inside, the most

immediate symbolic element of the town halls are their clock towers. Both buildings were originally

designed without towers, and only had them added later, on the request of councillors. Leeds’ tower

was designed in 185656 three years after the competition had been won, while Waterhouse was

plagued by his, re-design following re-design, until the final drawings were complete as it was being built

in 1875.57 Thus they were not the architects whim of design, but a necessity of the symbolic function of

the building. Neither were they the feather in the cap to an already opulent building, both (Leeds at

225 feet and Manchester at 235 feet) stand below several other towers – the tallest being Greenock.58

Contemporary and modern sources comment on the effect of towers on the city:

In addition, time across England was not standardised until 1880, meaning that these clock towers were

again representations of the individuality of the towns, not just politically, but temporally.

“Some have argued that the tower would be of ‘no use’. The same argument, carried out, would

reduce the building to four bare walls and a roof. A noble building is at one and the same a symbol and

an incitement; an evidence of the community erecting it, and an inducement to every member of the

community to maintain that importance and exhibit that intelligence in his own proper person.” 59

“Town hall towers provided a necessary point of reference for anyone looking at a town, and their

individuality helped to stamp everyone’s town hall as being particularly his own.” 60

Thus we can understand these towers as an absolute necessity to the political effect of these

buildings. They acted as a sign for the whole city to see, and the tower became another method by

which the town hall was owned by citizens, through the internalisation of their sign-like language that

stood for the public spaces inside, and outside, the building. While it is difficult to stretch to the idea

that citizens owned the clock tower, they certainly could own the public hall beneath – if only for a

short while.

“The town hall builders were concentrating on the business of showing a stability that was not a sham,

and their buildings were not intended to conceal the multifarious problems of urbanisation.” 61

This ownership was also conveyed through the use of local materials and the idea of the earth the city

was built on being used to construct the buildings. These, perhaps not domestic, but common materials

lend the buildings an atmosphere of communality, much like local churches of the time. The brick and

stone of the town halls was expected to discolour under the smog of the industrial revolution, which in

due course they did, almost in solidarity with the rest of the city.

56 Colin Cunningham, op cit. p 3857 Colin Cunningham and Prudence Waterhouse, op cit. p 5958 Colin Cunningham, op cit. Appendix III59 The builder, 11 (1853) 690-691 as quoted in, Derek Linstrum, op cit. p 2360 Colin Cunningham, op cit. p 17461 Ibid. p 175

51

41. The development of Leeds’ tower, 1852, 1853, 1854, 1858 and after completion

42. The development of Manchester’s tower, 1867, 1867, 1868, 1868, 1869 and after completion

52

Outside and inside both town halls stand statues of prominent local people, from historical to

contemporary figures. These sculptures provide a human scale to the building, and the people they are

modelled on will no doubt have descendents in the city. Inside, the decoration is entirely secular and

murals celebrate acts of local note, rather than biblical scenes. When icons are displayed, they are of

the things that made the towns wealthy, such as rams in Leeds and weaving machines, shuttles and

cotton flowers in Manchester. Manchester’s own icon of a bee appears profusely to indicate the

industrious nature of the city, while in Leeds an even older civic pride – so strong it led to civil war –

can be seen in the abundant use of the white rose of the House of York. These have been updated as

restoration work has been needed, such as during the 1979 restoration of Leeds Town Hall where the

arms of the seven local authorities which merged with Leeds are shown, replacing the heraldry of the

local craft guilds.62

These statues, paintings and symbols of local history and civic pride serve a very important role.

Through their common ownership – like a flag or a football shirt – they serve to engage the population

in the building at the same time as symbolising the population. Thus they are truly representational,

acting as ‘stand-ins’ that have been empowered by the populace. This gives the building an authority

vested in it by the people. But the only way that these symbols can operate is through public access to

the buildings. If the public were not allowed into the public hall, the ring corridors and the civic square,

then these symbols would become as self defeating as the glass and steel of transparent architecture. It

is precisely because they live up to their promises that they are successful.

Again, to place my arguments about the reading of these buildings within a discourse, both modern

and contemporary, I will refer to Learning from Las Vegas and The Politics of the Envelope. Within Zaera

Polo’s definition of four types of envelope, these two town halls are examples of his flat-horizontal

category, which is typical of leisure and convention centres – places of public access.63 This typology is

marked out by being serviced,64 primarily understood in plan, with edges that are important to the

reading of the building. These edges are concerned with display and differentiation, controlling how the

public enter and perceive the building. Both Leeds and Manchester Town Halls rely on the façade to

express their aspirations, yet the interior is free to operate in its own manner. Another interesting

example of this is the Houses of Parliament in London– gothic on the façade to echo the style of

medieval Britain, but classical in plan so as to provide maximum functional effect.

62 Susan Wrathmell with John Minnis, op cit. p 7863 Alejandro Zaera Polo, op cit. p 8264 Both Waterhouse’s and Brodrick’s buildings have advanced, intrinsic heating and ventilation strategies – Manchester has heating coils in the bottom of each spiral stair so that warm air is drawn up through the building, while Leeds’ ventilation towers are carefully modelled into the roofline.

53

43. A photograph of ceiling decoration in Leeds Town Hall, note the rams and white roses

44. A photograph of ceiling decoration in Manchester Town Hall, note the bees, red roses and shuttles

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Meanwhile in Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour’s text, the town halls can be read as decorated sheds:

“Where systems of space and structure are directly at the service of program, and ornament is

applied independently of them. This we call the decorated shed. … the decorated shed is the

conventional shelter that applies symbols.” 65

The indication that programme and display are separate in these buildings, suggested by the reading of

Zaera Polo’s writing, is furthered with relation to Learning from Las Vegas. The notion of signage for a

building is most actively fulfilled by the clock towers, however, these were not in the original designs for

the buildings, and they were only finalised as the buildings were being constructed. This marks them out

as particularly applied symbols, while the shed-like nature of the space they are attached to is illustrated

by both buildings filling their allocated building plots. Manchester town hall even spills over the edges of

its allocated plot and Leeds alters the public realm around itself. As such they are not structures reigned

in to produce a form, they are maximised spatially and functionally, with applied symbolic elements.

These texts both place the methods used by Manchester and Leeds Town Halls in a category of

applied symbolism. This enables them to have a range of efficient public spaces inside and out, while

creating a civic identity that alludes to the use of public spaces within. Thus the texts argue that the

typology of these buildings is non-iconic, since they symbolise what they actually do, and their function

is not subsumed by their symbolic requirements.

The public space both internally and externally, twinned with the representative symbolism of this

public space means that these two town halls adhere to my definition of democratic architecture. Again

Ludger Schwarte sums up the possible effects of re-addressing democratic architecture:

“The integration of the public space into the architecture of parliamentary buildings makes democracy

both forward looking and consistently provisional.” 66

Democratic architecture should not aim to symbolise what democracy symbolises. It should aim to

display what democracy is, which in England has always been the representation of citizens. Thus, firstly,

democratic architecture should display the people and society for whom it is built. It should be of its

own time and not hope to symbolise an immutable notion of a democratic universal. Through this,

representational symbolism is democratic, it does not act as an icon for democracy.

65 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, op cit. p 8766 Ludger Schwarte, op cit. p 794

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45. A print of the public hall in Leeds

46. A print of the public hall in Manchester

A New Democratic Architecture

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A New Democratic Architecture

“architecture has an important role to play today as an instrument of change”

Alejandro Zaera Polo 67

Why should we be so critical of this period of transparent democratic architecture that we have lived

through? At a time when citizens are compelled to fight and overthrow autocratic regimes in Libya,

Tunisia and Egypt, we are shown how important it is that democracy allows discussion. We cannot

become complacent in our belief that we live in a perfect democratic society. The Alternative Vote

referendum of 2011, proposed by our first coalition government since the Second World War, proves

that the methods by which democracy acts in this country are always open to change. Through this

constant scrutiny we can hope for a return to responsibility in government.

Transparent iconography fails to live up to its promises, but certain elements of representational

architecture do manage to present how the buildings supply large areas for public use. Therefore I will

now discuss how the architecture of contemporary town halls can re-address the need for a

democratic architecture using some of the methods found in these historic buildings. To examine how

representative architecture can be deployed in the modern age I will look at the Hillingdon Civic

Centre in Uxbridge and my own design for The Aylesbury Town Hall in Southwark. To see how these

buildings deal with creating a democratic architecture, I will analyse their function and symbolism in a

similar way to that of Leeds and Manchester Town Halls.

Opened in 1978, the Hillingdon Civic Centre is one of the only town halls to have been completed in

the latter part of the 20th Century, due to the consolidation of local government in 1965 and the oil

crisis of the 70s. Designed by Sir Andrew Derbyshire of Robert Matthew, Johnson Marshall and

Partners (better known as RMJM) from 1970,68 it was built “to break away from the post-war

conventions of civic design and express the identity of the newly created London Borough of Uxbridge

through distinctive landmark architecture.”69 This landmark architecture was not to be aloof though,

and by working closely with the borough architect and a panel of council members, a representational

architecture was formulated. Indeed Derbyshire stated that “Hillingdon Civic Centre was an attempt to

provide for self-selected suburbanites an approachable image for their newly created London

Borough.”70

67 Alejandro Zaera Polo, op cit. p 10168 British Architectural Library , op cit. p 3269 Ibid. p 5270 Andrew Derbyshire, ‘The Story of a Contradiction’, RMJM, RMJM 40: The First Forty Years (London: RMJM, 1996) pp 4-9, p 8

47. A photograph of the entrance hall in Hillingdon Civic Centre

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50. A plan and elevation of The Aylesbury Town Hall

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My own design for The Aylesbury Town Hall responds to the planned regeneration of The Aylesbury

estate over the next 20 years. In order to maintain a strong community throughout this regeneration,

residents need a greater say in their local area and more community spaces. To enable this, it is

proposed that a parish council is set up within the boundaries of The Aylesbury, using legislation passed

in 2008. The town hall that I have designed for this elected body provides community spaces, while the

residents voting power twinned with the parish council's spending power gives more control over the

local area. The Aylesbury Town Hall is strongly influenced by my research into Leeds, Manchester and

Hillingdon town halls. Here it is used to suggest ways that the positives gleaned from the Hillingdon

Civic Centre could be pushed further.

The success of Leeds and Manchester stem from their two scales of public space and representation,

these are the external and the internal. The external concerns the scale of the city and the polis, while

the internal addresses the scale of a citizen. I will first look at these buildings from the scale of the city

outside, and then move inside to the personal scale.

While Hillingdon contains a range of functions similar to those found in Leeds and Manchester, the

plans are very different. Instead of a centralised building, departments are spread across the site, with

public space passing around, through and beneath the town hall. This makes the building much more

accessible to the public, and rather than glass symbolising a permeable building, “accessibility was

emphasised through an open plaza before the public entrance.”71

More specific functions are then placed within this public space to encourage occupation. At

Hillingdon, just outside the registry office, there is a courtyard with a decorative gate, tree and well for

wedding photographs. In The Aylesbury items such as public toilets, games fields and play equipment

would be spread across the site to suggest a more constant use by a wider variety of visitors to the

town hall. These would see the effect of the dispersed plan maximised, while at the same time making

use of the spaces between the buildings. Elements like these – as much as a grand civic square –

suggest an honest public ownership to the building and, as Ben Rogers writes, promote a civic good.

The symbolism is therefore achieved

alongside an actual, spatial function. By moving on from the ring corridors used in Leeds and

Manchester a larger area of ambiguous public/private space is created and the building is broken down

to a more accessible scale. This also ensures that elected and appointed representatives traverse a

public realm to reach other buildings and provides a space for chance encounters and discussions.

71 British Architectural Library , op cit. p 52

52. A photograph of the public square in Hillingdon Civic Centre

53. A photograph of the wedding square in Hillingdon Civic Centre

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The range of departments in local government means that Hillingdon Civic Centre has multiple

entrances, so wayfinding becomes an important consideration. While this might make for difficult

navigation in a more faceless building, here landmarks spread throughout the fabric of the town hall

ensure confident orientation. For example a 1940s building (retained as a large public hall) is still visible

in the structure. It was integrated with the building to “encourage the public to use the site and accept

the centre as their own”.72

This tactic is replicated in The Aylesbury Town Hall’s prominent mayor’s office. This structure also

suggests that political function can be displayed through the architecture. Since the mayor is an

appointed, rather than elected, position in The Aylesbury – as in Hillingdon – and the real power lies

with the cabinet, the role is essentially ceremonial. This position as a figurehead of the council is re-

presented in the architecture, with an easily identifiable, ground level structure. This directly contradicts

the lofty and introspective architectural expression of the elected Mayor of London’s office in City Hall.

Through being easy to pick out, it is a place that people can symbolically protest around, and it mirrors

the symbolic nature of the mayor.

Inside Hillingdon Civic Centre, the public hall, meeting rooms and council chamber can be hired for

public or corporate activities. This council chamber stands in opposition to the externalisation that was

found in City Hall, since it is deep inside the building, but still publicly accessible in order to internalise

public debate. In the council chamber, the public sit at eye level with the councillors as can be seen

opposite. This creates a spatial equality between representative and citizen, and was one of the major

suggestions in Reinventing the Town Hall73. The equivalency suggested by Leeds, Manchester and

Hillingdon Town Halls is re-created in The Aylesbury, where the public hall is by far the largest room in

the design and the public sit on the same level as the council. The rest of the building also contains a

range of public spaces that intermingle with more private office space to continue the trend of making

the architecture more public.

72 RMJM, Hillingdon Civic Centre Report (NMR collection)73 Ben Rogers, op cit. Chapter 4

54. A photograph of the public hall entrance in Hillingdon from 1939

55. An elevation of the Mayor’s office in The Aylesbury

56. A photograph looking across the council chamber to the public seating in Hillingdon

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68

To symbolise these public spaces, a number of methods are used. On the city scale the clock tower is

an important sign to the wider public. As Cunningham writes, these help to establish the town hall as a

publicly owned building. In Hillingdon the council chamber sits beneath a small clock tower (salvaged

from the 1940s building mentioned previously) that denotes its location. It has been suggested that a

larger tower would have aided the composition and symbolism of the building, but that height

restrictions from the flightpaths of nearby Heathrow Airport ruled it out.74

Many things that the council is responsible for are taken for granted or go unnoticed until needed,

therefore a symbol of these functions is suggested for The Aylesbury Town Hall. This totem pole,

shown opposite, symbolises the departments of the council and provides a reminder of the council’s

work in the wider community. In a similar way to the World Wildlife Fund’s panda collection box, it

illustrates where the money from council tax will go, and perhaps makes paying it more bearable and

the council’s responsibilities more intelligible.

However, the building sits at

the end of the high street, and the multiple routes through it along with the square embed it firmly in

the public realm. Furthering this, The Aylesbury’s clock tower stands above the surrounding townscape

and town hall while its distinctive shape helps to provide a symbol that can be easily identified.

However the clock tower has no clock face, since with the modern profusion of watches and mobile

phones there is little need for a clock to tell the time, but it is possible for the clock tower to tell us

something else.

While the maxim ‘walls are exclusive, roofs are inclusive’ might be a little glib, diversity and inclusion

are symbolised both in plan and elevation of Hillingdon. An eclecticism of forms is created by the plan,

from rectilinear offices contrasting with irregular committee rooms to the geometric council chamber

clashing with curved stairs. Meanwhile different methods of exposed construction, from load-bearing

brick and timber roof trusses to in situ reinforced concrete and structural steel frame, give a variety of

finishes in both town halls. These sit within the overarching language of red-brick walls, tiled pitched

roofs and square, quartered windows in Hillingdon Civic Centre. This vernacular serves to place the

building within the overwhelmingly suburban nature of Uxbridge, and inherently gives ownership to the

community through its domestic language. This was a conscious effort and “the borough set out with

the architects to design a building that spoke a language of form intelligible to its users”.75 This seemed

to work, and contemporary sources stated “it is an expression of local democracy”.76 The Aylesbury

Town Hall also applies this by twinning vernacular patterns with grained or veined materials. At the

same time, these patterns are of a larger scale than the structures they cover, and bleed outside the

boundaries of the walls, suggesting a wider community.

74 Gavin Stamp, ‘How Hillingdon Happened’, Architectural Review, vol.165 (Feb 1979) pp80-89, p 8875 Frank Duffy, ‘Hillingdon Civic Centre’, Architects Journal, (18 May 1977) pp 931-46, p 93176 Gavin Stamp, op cit. p 85

69

57. A photograph of the clock tower at Hillingdon

58. An elevation of the totem pole at The Aylesbury, note the symbols denoting the housing, children, welfare, corporate, environment, information and scrutiny departments.

59. A photograph of Hillingdon in the 1970s, note the Civic Centre in the background

70

The tactics detailed across the last few pages place the buildings within the decorated shed definition

of Venturi, Scott Brown and Izenour. The buildings supply a range of efficient functions, both public and

private, with a number of applied elements to signify the public access to, and use of, the building. That

Hillingdon Civic Centre is still in use is testament to this. Right from the start of the design process it

was RMJM’s aim to “attempt to acknowledge the need for friendliness in architecture without sacrificing

in any significant way the requirements of functional efficiency”.77

Zaera Polo forcefully states the necessity of an immediate re-appraisal of the effect of a building’s skin

in his text. He writes that architecture must deal with the contemporary political landscape by claiming

a physical quality of faciality

RMJM used their experience and

strong belief in architecture as a service to create a building that functions very well as both a civic

space and public face for the borough.

78 and, through this, become an agent of change. He suggests democracy

through differentiation of pattern across a façade79

Through these methods, architectures of contemporary representation are formed. The provision of

public space and the symbolism of these spaces using techniques from historic examples mean that

these two buildings are successful in my definition of democratic architecture. The range of scales

enables them to relate to individuals and the wider community, while providing a range of useful spaces

inside and out.

and these town halls can be seen as an attempt to

put this aspect of his differential faciality into practice. The brick of Hillingdon and the patterning of The

Aylesbury create a human scale of faciality, where the tiling of materials suggests an equivalency.

77 Peter Davey, ‘Trad is Back’, Sunday Times Magazine (20th January 1980) p 1778 This term is a continuation from Peter Sloterdijk’s term explication, and here means an architecture that creates affects through various methods of envelope modulation. Alejandro Zaera Polo, op cit.79 Alejandro Zaera Polo, op cit. p 103

71

60. A drawing of Hillingdon Civic Centre in use, note the council chamber to the left, committee rooms in the centre and entrance to the bottom right

conclusion

74

conclusion

Public inclusion, and representation of this public inclusion, has steadily declined throughout the

history of buildings for democratic processes. These aspects are both important since they enable

citizens to empower their representatives, and therefore legitimise representational democracy. Town

halls began in the 19th century as methods of decentralisation and symbols of civic pride. The best of

these included vast public spaces and a number of methods to symbolise that the buildings were for

public use and benefit. This symbolism, backed up with the full access to a number of public spaces,

meant that citizens could feel a sense of ownership over their town hall. However, following the

development of transparency as an iconic language for democracy in Germany and the Second World

War, this new language of glass came to be prevalent, right up until the present day. Due to its iconic

nature, this transparent architecture made it seem as though the spaces inside these town halls were

public, when actually they were inaccessible. Turning away from this false symbolism, a return to the

methods of representational symbolism of the 19th century town halls is proposed through a post

modern building and through my own work. These both seek to enable public use of the town hall and

symbolise this public access in an appropriate way.

There must be an immediate re-appraisal of democratic architecture, since transparency is an

iconography that actively falsifies the promise of democratic involvement. By referring to pre-

transparency methods of relating architecture democracy it is possible to progress and propose a new

democratic architecture. By increasing the public space and engagement within the town hall, and at the

same time creating buildings that represent this, using familiar methods, it is possible to create a

democratic architecture free of the iconology of transparency. This representative architecture hopes to

reverse the trends of removing symbolism and public access from democratic buildings in order to

restore trust in the government and political engagement in the people. By understanding the ways in

which democratic architecture is produced and being constantly critical of how it operates, we can aim

to produce an architecture that is historicist yet contemporary, that hopes to usher in a new age of

responsibility in local government.

75

61. Recommendation for a town hall, after Robert Venturi

bibliography

78

John H.G. Archer, ‘A Classic of its Age’ John H.G. Archer (ed), Art and Architecture in Victorian Manchester : Ten Illustrations of patronage and practice (Manchester: Manchester university Press, 1985

Books

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Deborah Ascher Barnstone, The Transparent State : Architecture and Politics in Postwar Germany (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005)

Iain Borden and Katerina Ruedi Ray, The Dissertation : An Architecture Student’s Handbook (Oxford: Architectural Press. 2009)

British Architectural Library , London’s Town Halls : The Architecture of Local Government from 1840 to the Present (Swindon: English Heritage, 1999)

Peter Buchanan, ‘When Democracy Builds’, David Jenkins (ed), Norman Foster : Works 4 (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2004) pp 248 – 255

Colin Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian town halls (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981)

Colin Cunningham and Prudence Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse, 1830-1905 : Biography of a Practice (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1992)

Sir Andrew Derbyshire, ‘The Story of a Contradiction’, RMJM, RMJM 40 : The First Forty Years (London : RMJM,1996) pp 4-9

The Electoral Commission, The Greater London Authority elections 2008 : Report on the administration of the 1 May 2008 elections (London: The Electoral Commission, July 2008)

Adrian Forty, Words and Buildings: A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture (London: Thames & Hudson, 2004)

Greater London Authority, Inside City Hall : Home of London’s Government (London : GLA, 2008)

Charles Jencks, ‘Open Government in a Cynical Age’, Curt Fentress, Civic Builders (Chichester : Wiley, 2002) pp26-31

David Jenkins and Thomas Weaver (eds.) Catalogue : Foster and Partners (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2005)

David Jenkins (ed), Rebuilding the Reichstag (New York: Overlook Press, 2000)

Osbert Lancaster, A Cartoon History of Architecture (London: John Murray, 1975)

Derek Linstrum, Towers and Colonnades: The architecture of Cuthbert Brodrick (Leeds: The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, 1999)

Ben Rogers, Reinventing the Town Hall : A Handbook (London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2004)

Ludger Schwarte, ‘Parliamentary Public’, Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel (eds), Making Things Public : Atmospheres of Democracy (Cambridge : MIT Press, 2005) pp 786-797

Deyan Sudjic and Helen Jones, Architecture and Democracy (London: Laurence King, 2001)

Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas : The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Cambridge : MIT Press, 1977)

Michael Z. Wise, Capital Dilemma : Germany’s search for a new Architecture of Democracy (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1998)

Susan Wrathmell with John Minnis, Leeds : Pevsner Architectural Guides (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005)

79

Peter Davey, ‘Trad is Back’, Sunday Times Magazine (20th January 1980)

Articles

Frank Duffy, ‘Hillingdon Civic Centre’, Architects Journal, (18 May 1977) pp 931-946

Fredric Jameson, ‘The Brick and the Balloon : Architecture, Idealism and Land Speculation’ New Left Review, vol. a, nos. 228 (1998) pp 25-46

Charles Jencks and Maggie Valentine, ‘The Architecture of Democracy : The Hidden Tradition’, Architectural Design,vol. 57 nos. 9/10 (1987) pp 9-25

Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, ‘Transparency : Literal and Phenomenal’, Perspecta, vol. 8 (1963) pp 45-54

Gavin Stamp, ‘How Hillingdon Happened’, Architectural Review, vol.165 (Feb 1979) pp80-89

Alejandro Zaera Polo, ‘The Politics of the Envelope : A Political Critique of Materials’, Volume, nos. 17 (Fall 2008)pp 76-105

‘Wood Green Civic Centre’, The Builder (13 June 1958) pp1076-77

galinsky.com – Acessed 09/02/11

Websites

Benjamin Barber, ‘Do We Live in an Age Where New Public Spaces Are Emerging?’, The Decline and Rise of Public Spaces (iTunes U : Hertie School of Governance, 2008)

Videos

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Politics of the Envelope (iTunes U: California College of the Arts, 2009)

citizen – a person who can vote

Glossary

symbol – a thing that re-presents another thing in a different form, see simile

icon – a thing that has its meaning replaced by that of another thing, see metaphor

transparent symbolism – glass and steel construction that displays political transparency through material transparency

representative symbolism – monolithic construction that displays political representation through ornamental representation

democratic architecture – a building that symbolises democracy and provides public space.

architecture of democracy – types of buildings that hold democratic processes

80

Front cover

Images

Autocracy, Republic, Democracy, Anarchy by author

Introduction

1. adapted from digimap

Defining Democratic Architecture

2. thomasgransow.de/Athen/Staetten_der_Attischen_Demokratie/pnyx1.jpg

3. labspace.open.ac.uk/file.php/4810/W100_2_I006i.jpg

4. ’Third Empire’ [P165] and ‘Marxist Non-Aryan’ [P167], Osbert Lancaster, A Cartoon History of Architecture(London: John Murray, 1975)

The Myth of Transparency

5. by portemolitor, flickr.com/photos/26357712@N03/4177542478/

6. by author

7. adapted from P1076-77 The Builder 13 June 1958

8. adapted from digimap

9. from NMR photocopied documents, Architecture and Building News 2 july 1958

10. p1075 The Builder 13 June 1958

11. from NMR collection, Building file 095834, copyright RCHME 1998

12. from NMR collection, Building file 095834, copyright RCHME 1998

13. by author

14. from NMR collection, Building file 095834, copyright RCHME 1998

15. by author

16. by author

17. by author

18. london.indymedia.org/articles/6086

Transparent Iconography

19. “Hannes Meyer, Project for League of Nations Competition, 1927, Bird’s Eye View, Geneva, Switzerland, Item ID:14097” mcah.columbia.edu/dbcourses/item.cgi?template=submagnifylg&id=14097&table=items

20. p12 Ben Rogers, Reinventing the Town Hall : A Handbook (London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2004)

21. adapted from

cdn.archdaily.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/1288313730-corbusier-assembly-1000x749.jpg

s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_liuu9eOidI1qe0nlvo1_1280.jpg?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ6IHWSU3BX3X7X3Q&Expires=1303639053&Signature=9bVVOwNqj6ShcZBKOCeapXl%2FqSA%3D

p 167, Deborah Ascher Barnstone, The Transparent State : Architecture and Politics in Postwar Germany (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005)

81

22. adapted from p317 and 315 respectively, David Jenkins (ed), Norman Foster : Works 4 (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2004)

23. by Martin Soler, martinsoler.com/2010/01/27/london-city-hall-and-tower-bridge/

24. adapted from P 88/89 Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas : The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Cambridge : MIT Press, 1977)

25. redrawn from P 80, Alejandro Zaera Polo, ‘The Politics of the Envelope : A Political Critique of Materials’, Volume, nos. 17 (Fall 2008) pp 76-105

26. Adapted from p188, David Jenkins and Thomas Weaver (eds.) Catalogue : Foster and Partners (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 2005)

and plans sent to me by Erich Kluge at City Hall

27. adapted from digimap

28. by Linus Lim, open-city.org.uk/news/images.html

29. upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/64/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R0821-400,_Berlin,_Palast_der_Republik.jpg

30. webstorage.mediaon.it/media/2009/03/55808_786583_terragni16_7600094_medium.jpg

The Architecture of Representational Democracy

31. by author

32. by wakefieldpinball, flickr.com/photos/wakefieldpinball/4885190152/

33. by author

34. adapted from p21, Derek Linstrum, Towers and Colonnades: The architecture of Cuthbert Brodrick (Leeds: The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, 1999)

35. adapted from digimap

36. adapted from p57, Colin Cunningham and Prudence Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse, 1830-1905 : Biography of a Practice (Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1992)

37. adapted from digimap

38. by Rachael Chappelow

39. by Darby Sawchuk, dsphotographic.com/g2/15723-3/Manchester+Town+Hall+Interior+-+005.jpg

40. by author

41. adapted from:

p 24, Derek Linstrum, Towers and Colonnades: The architecture of Cuthbert Brodrick (Leeds: The Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society, 1999)

p 39, Colin Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian town halls (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981)

wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leedstownhall.jpg

leodis.org/discovery/images/2003612_808446229.jpg

leodis.org/discovery/images/2003612_361729920.jpg

42. adapted from:

82

p344, Colin Cunningham and Prudence Waterhouse, Alfred Waterhouse, 1830-1905 : Biography of a Practice(Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1992)

p133, John H.G. Archer, ‘A Classic of its Age’ John H.G. Archer (ed), Art and Architecture in Victorian Manchester : Ten Illustrations of patronage and practice (Manchester: Manchester university Press, 1985

p51, Colin Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian town halls (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981)

p134, John H.G. Archer, ‘A Classic of its Age’ John H.G. Archer (ed), Art and Architecture in Victorian Manchester : Ten Illustrations of patronage and practice (Manchester: Manchester university Press, 1985

p140, John H.G. Archer, ‘A Classic of its Age’ John H.G. Archer (ed), Art and Architecture in Victorian Manchester : Ten Illustrations of patronage and practice (Manchester: Manchester university Press, 1985

p47, Colin Cunningham, Victorian and Edwardian town halls (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1981)

43. wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Entrance_hall_at_Leeds_Town_Hall.jpg

44. by daz tazer, flickr.com/photos/daz_taylor/3886023320/

45. p201, Illustrated Times, Sept 18 1858 prints-4-u.com/store/images/E1171858/E1171858187.jpg

46. p215, The Illustrated London News, Sept 15, 1877 prints-4-u.com/store/images/B3511879/B3511879261.jpg

47. p53, British Architectural Library , London’s Town Halls : The Architecture of Local Government from 1840 to the Present (Swindon: English Heritage, 1999)

48. adapted from p 91-2, Gavin Stamp, ‘How Hillingdon Happened’, Architectural Review, vol.165 (Feb 1979) pp80-89

49 adapted from digimap

50. by author

51. adapted from digimap

52. by Meera Khanna

53. by author

54. adapted from “Uxbridge civic buildings, 'county office', Hillingdon local studies, 1939” NMR collection, Building file 95840, copyright RCHME 1998

55, by author

56. by Meera Khanna

57. by author

58. by author

59. adapted from “911777 Uxbridge town Centre n.d.” NMR collection, Building file 95840, copyright RCHME 1998

60. p33, British Architectural Library , London’s Town Halls : The Architecture of Local Government from 1840 to the Present (Swindon: English Heritage, 1999)

61. adapted from p156, Robert Venturi, Denise Scott Brown and Steven Izenour, Learning from Las Vegas : The Forgotten Symbolism of Architectural Form (Cambridge : MIT Press, 1977)

83

This paper was set in 11pt Gill Sans Light and Light Italic.

The title is in 45pt Gotham Bold.

Sub titles and Chapter titles are set in 20pt and 18pt Gotham

Thin respectively.

Many thanks to

Marcus Andren

Sarah Carson

Michael Chance

Stephen Gage

Omar Ghazal

Jonathan Hill

Bill Hodgson

Ian McEwen

and

Martin Cable at Harringey

Meera Khanna and Michael Clements at Hillingdon

Erich Kluge at City Hall

Lucinda Walker at NMR

Rachael Chappelow at Leeds