The images this past Wednesday of violent insurrectionists storming the United States Capitol in a misguided attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election shocked the nation. Those stunning images betrayed how fragile the foundations of the country’s democratic ideals truly are, and how important it is to protect and preserve them. That the events occurred around and within the Capitol building—a literal symbol of democracy—only served to amplify the seriousness of the threat posed by those who seek to destroy the republic.
In the wake of Wednesday’s violent protest, some pundits and scholars are beginning to assess its impact upon the nation’s psyche from the perspective of how we interpret the attack on what the Capitol’s architecture represents. The grand building is among the most recognizable in America. Its architects (first William Thornton, and later Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Charles Bulfinch, Thomas U. Walter, and others) expressly intended its forms to be symbolic vehicles of content—in plan, elevation, and ornamentation. For example, the Capitol building’s two wings—one for the House of Representatives and one for the Senate—flank the massive central dome and characterize their equality as partners in the legislative process. The dome itself is an ancient representation of the “female principle,” metaphorically the womb, but also of the sky and heavens above. In the context of the Capitol building, we may additionally interpret the dome as a symbol of unity and divinely granted absolute power. Moreover, the building is iconic by virtue of its dominance over the city’s skyline, and also because of its strategic siting at what once was the geometric center of Washington DC.
Robert Stribley, an immigrant from Australia now living and working as a writer in Brooklyn, NY penned a piece for Medium.com denouncing the assault on the US Capitol and the awful symbolism of the event. I wish I could write as forcefully. Here’s an excerpt:
Like the various chambers of government worldwide, the
Capitol represents a great achievement in this evolution of human cooperation. It’s
the seat of the legislative branch of our federal government. It’s where our
various elected officials come together and argue on our behalf, despite their
diverse differences and sometimes even reach agreements. And whatever the flaws
of this process in this venue, it’s the best we’ve been able to do so far. As Winston
Churchill said, “No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed,
it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all
those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”
Because those who fell upon the Capitol had no real arguments or evidence to present—only misinformation and conspiracy theories and repeatedly debunked claims of fraud—they fell upon the old ways. Violence. Destruction and theft of property. Attacking the press and destroying their equipment. Assaulting the police. Placing pipe bombs. Beating one officer to death with a fire extinguisher. Even pissing and defecating on the Capitol itself. As a secular human being, I hesitate to reach for the religiously loaded word “desecration,” but that’s what their actions amounted to. They violated the symbolic sanctity of the Capitol. Because however faulty, ugly, and awkward our government can be, that building does symbolize our fumbling efforts to resolve our many differences in a relatively civilized fashion and to move on. To progress.
Employing architecture and its power to convey meaning is far from unique to the US Capitol building. Other nations have likewise leveraged the architecture of their seats of government to communicate the aspirations of the institutions. Two noteworthy examples are the Canadian Parliament Buildings and the Australian Parliament House. These two serve to illustrate how broad the range of stylistic expression can be while in pursuit of many of the same symbolic ends. In the instance of the Canadian Parliament, this expression is in the form of Gothic Revival (in the tradition of the Palace of Westminster in London), whereas its Australian counterpart—designed by the American/Australian consortium of Mitchell/Giurgola & Thorp and completed in 1988—adopted a thoroughly contemporary idiom. Despite their disparate styles, and in much the same way as the US Capitol, both complexes possess a diagrammatic clarity in plan and section entirely rooted in the symbolism of democracy.
Australian Parliament House (photo by CSIRO, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Also like the US Capitol building, the Canadian Parliament can unfortunately point to its own notable instances of being victimized by those inclined toward extremist terrorism and violence, including a bombing in 1966 and a series of shootings in 2014. As with Wednesday’s event in Washington, the experiences on Parliament Hill in Ottawa simultaneously demonstrated the vulnerability of the symbols of democracy to acts of terrorism and the resiliency of Canada’s parliamentary system. The Canadian government responded with measures to help prevent similar future attacks, but they did not fundamentally alter the substance and symbolism of the architecture of the Parliament Buildings.
Will we see dramatic changes to the US Capitol building in the aftermath of the wannabe dictator’s botched coup d'état? Hopefully no, not overtly at least. Having visited the Capitol on two occasions myself, I would find it regrettable if the seditious acts of a deplorable few compels security officials to radically alter how visitors can experience and appreciate its architecture and the messages it conveys.
Whether consciously or not, we expect our important architecture to speak to us in meaningful ways. This is particularly true for the buildings intended to serve and represent the best of the human condition and our most important institutions. This is why seeing the US Capitol being defiled by rioters was profoundly disturbing. The extent to which our treasured symbols endure and withstand the efforts of those who wish to undo the institutions that bind our society is important. Architecture matters for this and so many other reasons.(1)
(1) The Capitol is an important symbol of democracy. But according to an article in the LA Times, it's a complicated one — "the people's house" was built by slaves
and designed, in countless ways, to erase their presence afterward.
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