Architecture, Power And National Identity

The first edition of Architecture, Power, and National Identity, published in 1992, has become a classic, winning the prestigious Spiro Kostof award for the best book in architecture and urbanism. Lawrence Vale fully has fully updated the book, which focuses on the relationship between the design of national capitals across the world and the formation of national identity in modernity. Tied to this, it explains the role that architecture and planning play in the forceful assertion of state power. The book is truly international in scope, looking at capital cities in the United States, India, Brazil, Sri Lanka, Kuwait, Bangladesh, and Papua New Guinea.

Lawrence Vale is the Head of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT. He has published six previous books, including the first edition of Architecture, Power, and National Identity, which received the Spiro Kostof Award from the Society of Architectural Historians.

Part 1: The Locus of Political Power 1. Capital and Capitol: An Introduction 2. National Identity and the Capitol Complex 3. Early Designed Capitals: For Union, for Imperialism, for Independence 4. Designed Capitals after World War Two: Chandigarh and Brasília 5. Designed Capitals Since 1960 Part 2: Four Postcolonial Capitol Complexes in Search of National Identity 6. Papua New Guinea’s Concrete Haus Tambaran 7. Sri Lanka’s Island Parliament 8. Precast Arabism for Kuwait 9. The Acropolis of Bangladesh 10. Designing Power and Identity