The Architecture Of Democracy

Centered on his intriguing synthesis of the American republic's architectural and democratic traditions, Allan Greenberg's essay moves across geography and through history as the renowned architect and scholar makes the case that America's architectural tradition and political ideals are deeply connected.At the core of the American democratic architectural tradition is the modest, single-family house, which gave rise to the statehouse, the courthouse, the firehouse, the schoolhouse, the jailhouse, and the President's house (as it was known before it became the White House).Generously illustrated and skillfully written, Architecture of Democracy traces a common line from the earliest colonial settlements to the Western frontier of the nineteenth century and today's ultramodern city centers. The volume will imbue in its readers a newfound appreciation for the democratic ideals that American architecture strives to express and uphold.

After 1945 it was not just Europe’s parliamentary buildings that promised to house democracy: hotels in Turkey and Dutch shopping malls proposed new democratic attitudes and feelings. Housing programs in the United Kingdom, the United States, and the Soviet Union were designed with the aim of creating new social relations among citizens and thus better, more equal societies. Architecture, Democracy, and Emotions focuses on these competing promises of consumer democracy, welfare democracy, and socialist democracy. Spanning from Turkey across Eastern and Western Europe to the United States, the chapters investigate the emotional politics of housing and representation during the height of the Cold War, as well as its aftermath post-1989. The book assembles detailed research on how the claims and aspirations of being "democratic" influenced the affects of architecture, and how these claims politicized space. Architecture, Democracy, and Emotions contributes to the study of Europe’s "democratic age" beyond Cold War divisions without diminishing political differences. The combination of an emotional history of democracy with an architectural history of emotions distinguishes the book’s approach from other recent investigations into the interconnection of mind, body, and space.

In July 2010, Facebook had over 500 million subscribers worldwide and the rapid rise of the site prompted Time magazine to name Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg its person of the year for 2010. This novel book advances our understanding of how democratic citizens are transformed by the "Facebook revolution". Despite increasing interest in politics and popular media, there has been little academic work on the impact of Facebook on politics in general, and on democratic processes in particular. The work that does exist has been limited to Facebook's impact on politics as a mobilization tool used by social movement activists. In this book, José Marichal argues that understanding Facebook's impact on political processes requires an understanding of how Facebook's architecture of disclosure shapes the construction of individuals' political identities by drawing users further into their pre-selected social networks. Drawing on a number of disciplines and an ethnographic analysis of 250 Facebook political groups, Marichal explores how Facebook's emphasis on social connection impacts key dimensions of political participation: e.g., mobilization, deliberation, and attitude formation.

A reissue in the Frank Lloyd Wright 150th anniversary year of the series of lectures which the celebrated American architect gave in London in 1939 and which outline his core philosophy of 'organic architecture'. In May 1939, the celebrated American architect Frank Lloyd Wright visited London and gave four lectures at the Royal Institute of British Architects. The meetings were hailed at the time as the most remarkable events of recent architectural affairs in England, and the lectures were published as An Organic Architecture in September 1939 by Lund Humphries. The texts remain an important expression of the architect's core philosophy and are being reissued now in a new edition to commemorate the 150th anniversary in 2017 of Frank Lloyd Wright's birth. In the lectures, Frank Lloyd Wright discusses several of his recent projects, including his Usonian houses, his homes and studios at Taliesin, Wisconsin and Arizona, Fallingwater and the Johnson administration building. His charismatic, flamboyant character and hugely creative intelligence leap to life from the pages as he looks to the 'Future', both in terms of the then-imminent Second World War and his vision for cities. This new edition includes an insightful new essay by esteemed architectural historian, Professor Andrew Saint, which sets the lectures within context and highlights their continued resonance and appeal

This is the first book to examine the development of the town hall during the twentieth century and the way in which these civic buildings have responded to the dramatic political, social and architectural changes which took place during the period. Following an overview of the history of the town hall as a building type, it examines the key themes, variations and lessons which emerged during the twentieth century. This is followed by 20 case studies from around the world which include plans, sections and full-colour illustrations. Each of the case studies examines the town hall's procurement, the selection of its architect and the building design, and critically analyses its success and contribution to the type’s development. The case studies include: Copenhagen Town Hall, Denmark, Martin Nyrop Stockholm City Hall, Sweden, Ragnar Ostberg Hilversum Town Hall, the Netherlands, Willem M. Dudok Walthamstow Town Hall, Britain, Philip Dalton Hepworth Oslo Town Hall, Norway, Arnstein Arneberg and Magnus Poulsson Casa del Fascio, Como, Italy, Guiseppe Terragni Aarhus Town Hall, Denmark, Arne Jacobsen with Eric Moller Saynatsalo Town Hall, Finland, Alvar Aalto Kurashiki City Hall, Japan, Kenzo Tange Toronto City Hall, Canada, Viljo Revell Boston City Hall, USA, Kallmann, McKinnell and Knowles Dallas City Hall, USA, IM Pei Mississauga City Hall, Canada, Ed Jones and Michael Kirkland Borgoricco Town Hall, Italy, Aldo Rossi Reykjavik City Hall, Iceland, Studio Granda Valdelaguna Town Hall, Spain, Victor Lopez Cotelo and Carlos Puente Fernandez The Hague City Hall, the Netherlands, Richard Meier Iragna Town Hall, Switzerland, Raffaele Cavadini Murcia City Hall, Spain, Jose Rafael Moneo London City Hall, UK, Norman Foster

Democratic design is increasingly seen as the key to crafting stability in the fragile states of the developing world. Getting the democratic institutions right may not guarantee success but getting them wrong has led to violent collapse in many socially divided states. The Architecture of Democracy brings together both theory and case study evidence to provide the reader with an excellent overview of the cutting edge of academic debate and its practical implications for democratic design in the 21st century. The discipline of constitutional engineering reached maturity in the 1990s with theories of ethnic polarization and democratic conflict management being applied in trouble spots across the globe. Andrew Reynolds brings together the leading lights of the discipline to discuss the successes and failures of constitutional design. The two icons of modern constitutional design, Arend Lijphart and Donald Horowitz, lead off by debating their own contributions to the field. Then Olga Shvetsova, Timothy Frye, and José Antônio Cheibub, present important new evidence from Europe, the Central and Eastern Europe/Asia, and Latin America. Steven Solnick, Yash Ghai, Pippa Norris, and Rein Taagepera analyze the effects of presdential and parliamentary systems, issues of federalism and autonomy, and the varying impact of electoral systems. The book concludes with Brij Lal's case study of Fiji, Brendan O'Leary on Northern Ireland, Bereket Habte Selassie on Eritrea, William Liddle on Indonesia, Rotimi Suburu and Larry Diamond on Nigeria, and David Stuligross and Ashutosh Varshney on India. The Architecture of Democracy is the culmination of the study of constitutional engineering in the third wave of democracy and sets parameters for this crucial research as democracy diffuses across the world.

This text looks at the fascinating history of the architecture of democratic buildings, from the earliest classical models of the Ancient World up to the newest parliaments being built today.

In The Empty Place: Democracy and Public Space Teresa Hoskyns explores the relationship of public space to democracy by relating different theories of democracy in political philosophy to spatial theory and spatial and political practice. Establishing the theoretical basis for the study of public space, Hoskyns examines the rise of representative democracy and investigates contemporary theories for the future of democracy, focusing on the Chantal Mouffe's agonistic model and the civil society model of Jürgen Habermas. She argues that these models of participatory democracy can co-exist and are necessarily spatial. The book then provides diverse perspectives on how the role of physical public space is articulated through three modes of participatory spatial practice. The first focuses on issues of participation in architectural practice through a set of projects exploring the ‘open spaces’ of a postwar housing estate in Euston. The second examines the role of space in the construction of democratic identity through a feminist architecture/art collective, producing space through writing, performance and events. The third explores participatory political democratic practice through social forums at global, European and city levels. Hoskyns concludes that participatory democracy requires a conception of public space as the empty place, allowing different models and practices of democracy to co-exist.