The Architecture of Democracy

Catalog description

Does the physical space where citizens and their representatives gather influence decision making? Can design intervention improve democratic processes and outcomes? To what extent does democracy find or co-opt places for enactment and representation? This course examines these questions historically. For the first half of the class, we will look at political spaces purpose-built and those that unintentionally became places for democracy in classical Athens and ancient Rome. Analyzing assembly buildings, voting precincts, public squares, and theaters, we will ask what were the characteristics and conditions that made space conducive to and nurturing of civic participation. We move towards the present in the second half of the course where we will interrogate the beginnings of our own American republic and the design of its institutions. We will read Thomas Jefferson's writings on his plans for the design of the U.S. Capitol building, as well as explore the history of the National Mall. Broadening out in our final weeks, we will consider contemporary trends in democratic architecture around the world. Throughout the course we will tackle what it means to design for democracy by digging into the concept of democracy itself, its values and practices, and the ways in which it itself can be seen as a spatial practice.