BJ.PoLS.

18, 287-302
Primed in Great Britain 287

The Architecture of Parliaments: Legislative

Houses and Political Culture
CHARLES T. GOODSELL

The architecture of houses of parliament and of legislative chambers in countries around the
world is analysed for its relationship to political culture. It is argued that parliamentary buildings
and spaces (1) preserve cultural values of the polity over time; (2) articulate contemporaneous
political attitudes and values; and (3) contribute to the formation of political culture.
Preservation is illustrated by how parliament buildings occupy sacred sites, symbolize the state
and assure the continuity of legislative traditions. Articulation is exemplified by reflecting the
relative importance of the two legislative houses and making expressive statements about the
role of parties, executives and individual legislators. Formation can be affected by the physical
dimensions of chambers, the arrangement of seats, aisles and lecterns, and spatial relationships
between houses and the parliament versus the executive. It is concluded that the advent of
television broadcasting of parliamentary sessions may make these architectural features even
more important in perpetuating, manifesting and shaping political culture.

The assumption of this article is that the physical architecture of parliaments is -

or should be - of interest to political scientists, not just architects or
architectural historians. This is because these buildings and the rooms within
them relate in important ways to political culture. For one thing, they are
themselves artefacts of political culture. National parliamentary buildings are
among the most prominent symbols of government in any polity. For another,
legislative houses are relevant to political scientists because of what they say
about the broader political culture that surrounds and moulds them. As I argue
elsewhere, these buildings, as self-consciously built stages for the performance of
political rituals, may be assumed to reflect the shared norms of governance and
underlying patterns of political behaviour that constitute political culture.1
Some of the connections between political science and architecture have been
previously noted. Harold Lasswell theorized about the openness of the rooms of
rulers as an indicator of democratic inclinations. He also speculated that the
configuration of city skylines can act as an indicator of relative group power
within a community.2 David Milne argued that public buildings may be thought
of as political metaphors whose solid facades make governmental institutions
appear mighty and durable. 3 Samuel Patterson noted that seating propinquity
in legislatures seems related to both personal bonds between legislators and

Center for Public Administration and Policy, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
1
Charles T. Goodsell, The Social Meaning of Civic Space: Studying Political Authority Through
Architecture (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1988), pp. 7-10.
2
Harold D. Lasswell, The Signature of Power: Buildings, Communication, and Policy (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1979).
3
David Milne, 'Architecture, Politics and the Public Realm', Canadian Journal of Political and
Social Theory, 5 (1981), 131-46.
288 GOODSELL

their voting behaviour.4 Cortus Koehler studied the effects of the design of city
council chambers on communication behaviour in city council meetings.5
In this article I propose that the architecture of parliamentary buildings and
the design and contents of parliamentary chambers make three contributions to
political culture: they perpetuate the past, they manifest the present and they
condition the future. I call these functions, respectively, Preservation, Articula-
tion and Formation.
Preservation is the mobilization, conservation and maintenance of cultural
values over long periods of time. The fact that buildings are constructed of
durable materials such as stone, wood, metal and glass means that architecture
performs well as a bearer of ideas over time. Not as explicitly as in medieval
cathedrals yet with surprising clarity, present-day public buildings and objects
embody deeply-rooted cultural concepts in their form and substance which are
then on display for later generations to absorb. With respect to parliamentary
houses, the relevant principles and ideas that are perpetuated concern the
nation, the state and the legislative institution itself. Sometimes this perpetua-
tion spills over outside original territorial boundaries, as in the special case of
the colonial reproduction of parliamentary architecture.
Articulation, the second function, is the manifestation of values and ideas
currently extant in political life at the time of the building's construction,
remodelling, refinishing, or rearrangement. Houses of parliament are not merely
monuments, they are built environments and inhabited spaces. They express not
just cultural content that pre-dates the structure - as in Preservation - but also
contemporaneous attitudes and behaviour. Building interiors are particularly
important here, for their surfaces and objects are utilized by occupants on a
daily basis and thus receive the imprint of current behaviour. Hence in the
Articulation function architecture acts as a record or index of ongoing political
life.6
By means of the third function, Formation, public architecture affects the
political future. A physical environment is created that indirectly influences
behaviour within parliaments and by governments. While the physical setting
does not by any means deterministically control the attitudes and behaviour of
people, it does condition their thoughts and actions in preliminary, subtle and
interactive ways.7 Buildings may be seen as a form of non-verbal communica-
tion in which messages are encoded by builders and then decoded by
occupants, with probabilistic but potentially powerful cueing effects as a result.8
As long as the setting remains intact it will transmit those cues, subject to the
* Samuel C. Patterson, 'Party Opposition in the Legislature: The Ecology of Legislative
Institutionalization', Polity, 4 (1972), 344-66.
5
Cortus T. Koehler, 'City Council Chamber Design: The Impact of Interior Design Upon the
Meeting Process', Journal of Environmental Systems, 10 (1980), 53-79.
6
Juan Pablo Bonta, Architecture and Its Interpretation: A Study of Expressive Systems in
Architecture (London: Lord Humphries, 1979).
7
David Canter, The Psychology of Place (New York: St Martin's Press, 1977).
8
Amos Rapoport, Human Aspects of Urban Form (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1977, and The
Meaning of the Built Environment (Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage Publications, 1982).
 The Architecture of Parliaments 289

important limitation that later generations may reinterpret the meaning of them
according to evolving cultural premises.9
In all three of these functions, it should be borne in mind, we find a mixture of
conscious, intentional acts on the one hand and the working of general cultural
transmission processes on the other. Those who conceive, plan, design and
furnish public buildings both follow the specific orders of regime officials and
respond unconsciously to their surrounding cultural milieu. These two relation-
ships of architecture to the political world are often indistinguishable from one
another. Both contribute to the preservation, articulation and formation of
political culture. We turn now to illustrations of the performance of each of these
three functions in national parliamentary buildings in selected countries.

THE PRESERVATION FUNCTION

Houses of parliament preserve the content of political culture in a most
elemental sense when they are sited on ground of special cultural significance. By
occupying a place of historic or symbolic importance the building 'holds' that
ground indefinitely on behalf of the political order, and thus perpetuates its
honour.
The Palace of Westminster occupies a shoreline along the Thames river that is
deeply meaningful to English history, for example. On this place stood the old
Royal Palace, which was the chief residence of kings of England for five
centuries, from Edward the Confessor to Henry VIII. Westminster Hall, whose
walls incorporate part of the Palace's original Great Hall of 1099, saw many
royal coronations, trials and lyings-in-state. As for European examples, the
Assembly Building of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia occupies a
meadow in Belgrade on which the Great Serbian National Assembly met in
1830 to confirm the autonomy of Serbia. The Palace of the Grand National
Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Romania is sited on the Hill of the
Patriarchy in Bucharest on which historic acts of nation-building occurred,
namely the union of Moldavia with Vallachia in 1859 and the unification with
Transylvania in 1918.
Another elemental act of Preservation by parliament buildings is the
stabilization of newly created national orders. By providing a tangible symbol of
a new political system, the edifice helps to 'jell' fluid constitutional situations and
thereby helps to preserve the incipient order. The first Federal State House in
Berne was constructed in 1852-57, shortly after the Swiss federation was formed
in 1948. The erection of the building was an important symbolic act and helped
to solidify the federation and establish Berne as the legitimate capital city.
Similarly, the German Reichstag, built in 1884-94, symbolized the unification of
Germany achieved by Bismarck in 1871. By the same token, the burning of the
Reichstag in 1933, probably by the National Socialists, traumatically damaged
the German political psyche. The importance of the Reichstag to German
9
Lars Lerup, Building the Unfinished: Architecture and Human Action (Beverly Hills, Calif: Sage
Publications, 1977).
290 GOODSELL

nationhood is indicated by its careful reconstruction in 1957-71, even though

modern parliamentary buildings had already been erected elsewhere.
The interior decor of houses of parliament may contribute to Preservation of
an established order by celebrating acts of its founding. In the sessions room, or
'Hemicycle', of the lower house of the Legislative Assembly of Portugal, a great
lunette decorates the back wall, painted with figures from events that led to the
adoption of the Constitution of 1822. In Berne's National Council chamber,
statues of William Tell and Staffacher's wife, dramatic personae from the play by
Schiller that provides the legendary basis of Swiss liberties, look down from
niches in the walls. The Founding Father of the United States, George
Washington, is apotheosized in the oculus of the US Capitol's rotunda, in a
giant concave painting located 180 feet above the floor. The walls of the rotunda
are lined with a 300-foot frieze that begins with the Landing of Columbus,
extends through the Declaration of Independence and Civil War, and ends with
the Birth of Aviation.
We do not have to examine just old parliament buildings to uncover such
Preservationist decor. The new Parliament House currently being completed in
Canberra is being decorated so as to mark successive epochs in Australia's
national-building process. The approaching forecourt incorporates Aboriginal
artwork and a fountain-surrounding 'island' so as to signify the pre-settled
continent. The entry foyer is decorated with carved panels that represent the
arrival of the first fleet of white visitors, while the reception hall inside contains
an embroidery depicting the ensuing of white settlement.
Other physical features of parliament buildings celebrate the act of national
integration that was achieved by formation of the political order. The Reichsrat
in Vienna is built of stone from all crown provinces of the Austro-Hungarian
Empire. The same is true with the Swiss Federal Palace, whose stone and wood
come from all Cantons. When the Federal Palace was erected in 1894-1900,
artists, craftsmen, and labourers were deliberately imported from all corners of
Switzerland to participate in creating this symbol of national union. Its rotunda
is decorated by stained glass windows that depict all economic areas of the
nation and by statues of infantry soldiers representing each of the country's four
language areas.
As Milne suggests, the exterior facades of public buildings often exude a
particular sense of strength, stability and dignity, thus presenting an image of
enduring and legitimate state power. Nineteenth and early twentieth century
parliamentary buildings almost always possess strong facades. Typically they
are rendered in variations of neo-classical architectural style complete with
columns, pilasters, cornices and entablatures. Often the centrepiece of the
composition is a columned portico topped by a pendimented gable, the generic
symbol of government in the West. By self-consciously reviving the architecture
of ancient Greece and Rome, such facades express values of reason, law and
legitimate government power; the contemporary state is in this way linked with
antiquity, thus establishing its temporal permanence beyond doubt.
Good examples of these neoclassical facades are found in the Palais de la
 The Architecture of Parliaments 291

Nation in Brussels, the Palais Bourbon in Paris, the Capitol in Washington and
the Reichsrat in Vienna. The last-named building was built in 1874-83 on the
Ringstrasse, Vienna's great street of public architecture. The Austrian
parliament's architect, Theophil Baron von Hansen, justified its Hellenistic style
in explicitly political terms: 'The ancient Greeks were the first people to love the
freedom of regularity above all, and it was their style which besides its
pronounced severity and regularity permitted a great liberty of development.'10
The Preservationist function extends also to the continuity of the legislative
institution itself. Typically legislatures revere their parliamentary spaces. Unless
fire or wartime destruction intervene, long-used legislative houses and chambers
are lovingly preserved as testaments to a venerable past. Of course additions and
modifications to parliamentary 'accommodations' occur, but these usually
pertain to increased office and staff space rather than significant alterations to
the chambers themselves.
The British Paraliament is illustrative. Westminster Palace has been the home
of the House of Commons and House of Lords since the building was put into
its present external form by Sir Charles Barry in the 1840s. After the interior of
the Commons chamber was destroyed by a German incendiary attack in 1941,
Augustus Pugin's Gothic design was reproduced almost without change.
Winston Churchill himself insisted on a faithful duplication of the old
Commons, arguing that its dimensions and appointments are inseparable from
the British political tradition. All furniture and ceremonial objects were perfectly
reconstructed, including The Table (from which the motion 'to table' comes), the
Dispatch Boxes (on which the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader lay their
speaking notes), the Bar of the House (a literal barrier at its entrance), the
canopied Speaker's Chair and the Petition Bag hanging behind it (source of the
phrase, 'it's in the bag').
The Preservationist contribution of parliamentary objects is also illustrated
in the US Congress. The mace of the House of Representatives dates from 1841
and is a copy of the one destroyed by the British when they burned the Capitol
in 1814. The Senate has no mace, but it is not without sacred objects. Its desks
are of the style used since 1819 (many of them original), including inkwells,
penholders and glass shakers of blotting sand. Another set of beloved objects is
lacquered snuffboxes that rest on ledges near the rostrum. The ivory gavel,
believed to date from 1789, was accidentally broken by Vice-President Nixon in
1954, but it is still brought to sessions in a velvet-lined box alongside a new
reproduction.
A final point with regard to the Preservationist function is that it is manifest
across territorial boundaries. This is accomplished by means of houses of
parliament built in former colonies, at least in the British case. The House of
Commons of Canada meets in a chamber that is, like its namesake, oblong and
laid out with opposing Government and Opposition benches. A canopied
Speaker's Chair occupies one end of The Floor with The Table facing it. The

10
The Austrian Parliament (Vienna: Osterreichische Staatsdruckerei, 1975), p. 22.
292 GOODSELL

Canadian Senate chamber emulates the British House of Lords, complete with
royal throne, Gothic detailing, and red coloration. The principal difference
between legislative chambers in London and Ottawa is that members of the
Canadian parliament sit at two-person desks rather than open benches.
Chamber layout in Australia and New Zealand is similar, except that parallel
rows of seating are joined by a semicircle of seats at one end. Reminders of the
Mother Parliament are particularly vivid in Wellington; there, one finds
Division Lobbies, desks for Hansard reporters, and a Speaker's chair decorated
with the British coat of arms.
The British colonies that became independent after the Second World War
also tend to emulate the parliamentary chambers of their former masters.
Although this is not the case in India, whose 1919 Parliament House was
intended to be of secondary significance to the colonial Secretariat, duplicates of
Westminster can be found in former colonies where legislative houses were built
since independence. The Ugandan Parliament House at Kampala is clothed in a
modern exterior but the interior of the National Assembly Chamber duplicates
the layout, colour (green), and artefacts of the House of Commons. The Table
bears two English-oak dispatch boxes and a silver-gilt mace, with the latter
presented as a gift by the British counterpart (although redesigned somewhat
since the Western mace is unknown in East Africa). The Malaysian Parliament
Building in Kuala Lumpur similarly unites a modern exterior and traditional
interior. The architect, Englishman Ivor Shipley, did not like the semicircular
seating previously used in the country's parliament on the grounds that it
encouraged departure from a proper two-party system:11
I was firmly convinced that the two-party system which existed should be clearly
expressed in architectural terms and that the horseshoe plan being used in the existing
Lower House should be abandoned. The layoutfinallyagreed for both Houses consisted
of parallel rows of seating at right angles to the Speaker, facing a central well. This is the
principle very similar to the layout of the Houses of Lords and Commons at
Westminster, suitably modified to meet local conditions.

THE ARTICULATION FUNCTION

We turn now to the second function performed by parliamentary houses with

regard to political culture, Articulation. Here architecture does not conserve the
past so much as express contemporaneous values and attitudes. It constitutes a
form of non-verbal language that states features of the political culture that may
or may not be revealed in other ways. These statements are particularly manifest
in building interiors, where used surfaces and objects act as an index to current
behaviour.
One way that parliamentary interiors constitute a political statement is in the
number, placement and size of assembly chambers. When a legislature consists
of two houses, this is naturally reflected in the existence of two chambers, in
1
' W. Ivor Shipley, The Parliament Building of Malaysia', Journal of the Parliaments of the
Commonwealth, 46 (1965), 177-81.
 The Architecture of Parliaments 293

that double use of one chamber is rare. Occasionally bicameralism is abandoned

in favour of unicameralism, and when this happens a corresponding shift occurs
architecturally. In Sweden, after lengthy controversy, one large new chamber
was constructed within the interior of the old Riksdag. In New Zealand, after the
Senate was discontinued, its former chamber was emptied of most furniture so as
to be available for a variety of public functions. In South Africa tricameralism
was recently adopted, requiring the construction of a new wing on Parliament
Building in Cape Town.
Since in most bicameral systems the two houses are seen as possessing equal
status, some manifestation of architectural equality between the two chambers is
usually present. This may be in the form of equivalent room dimensions, as in
Parliament House in New Delhi, or equivalently large building wings, as at the
Capitol in Washington. In France equivalency is achieved by housing each
chamber in an equally magnificent historic building, the Bourbon Palace for the
National Assembly and the Luxembourg Palace for the Senate. In Canada the
two chambers are both housed in a single building block, but they are
symmetrically placed at opposing ends of the floor plan so as to confer equal
architectural status. Despite widespread use of the terminology 'upper house'
and 'lower house', in almost all countries the two chambers are located on the
same storey of parliament house.
Unequal standing between the houses may or may not result in differentiation
between chambers. When the British House of Lords lost most of its substantive
power its chamber in Westminster remained as elegant as ever, although it is
noteworthy that when the House of Commons burned during the war it was the
Lords who moved temporarily to the Queen's Robing Room, not the elected
MPs. In West Germany the Bundestag and Bundesrat do not have equal
constitutional standing: the popularly-elected Bundestag cannot be overruled in
certain matters by the Bundesrat, which is composed of appointees of Lander
governments. Accordingly, the Bundestag chamber and the wing housing it are
much smaller than those occupied by the Bundesrat. Also, because they
represent governments rather than citizens, members of the Bundesrat possess
a special seating area in the Bundestag chamber, the 'Bundesrat bench'.
Also equality of chambers may be empty of meaning. The Supreme Soviet of
the USSR consists of two houses, the Soviet of the Union and the Soviet of the
Nationalities. But as politically powerless organs they do not even possess
chambers of their own. Their biennial two-day sessions are frequently joint -
there is little practical reason to have the bodies convene separately - and take
place in general-purpose halls or theatres within the Kremlin, such as the Great
Hall or the Hall of Congresses.
As regards chamber layout, it is instructive to launch a discussion of this topic
by commenting on the medieval estates of the Middle Ages. These bodies
typically met in square or rectangular rooms. At the mid-point of one side of the
room the king, the focal point of attention, would be seated. The royal throne
was normally elevated on a high podium and covered by an honorific canopy or
baldachin. Members of the estates were then seated in blocks, with the First
294 GOODSELL

Estate or clergy on the monarch's right, the Second Estate or nobility on his left,
and the Third Estate or bourgeoisie in the rear. 12
The modern legislative chamber is laid out very differently, although
connections between the two can be made. In modern monarchies such as
Britain, Belgium, Denmark and Holland honorific places are provided for
royalty. At the front of the Lords' Chamber in Westminster stands a magnificent
throne, fenced off when the Queen is not in attendance; this is definitely not the
case in the Commons, from which the monarch has been banned since 1642. In
the Danish Riksdag, royalty sits in a special gallery overlooking the floor from
above. In the Japanese Diet, the House of Councillors incorporates the
Emperor's throne on the ground floor; it is elevated behind the platform
backdrop and hidden by curtains when not occupied.
The contemporary legislature is presided over not by the king, however, but
by designated officers such as parliamentary speakers and presidents. The
honour and power bestowed on these officers is reflected architecturally by the
same themes formerly directed to royalty, i.e., centrality, elevation and
encapsulation in an impressive piece of furniture.
The basic furniture device for honouring parliamentary officers is a large and
richly decorated rostrum mounted on a podium. This ensemble may include a
horizontal bench or presidium, as in Austria or the Soviet Union; a vertically
high structure or tribune, as exemplified in France and Finland; or a nested
group of convex tables at successive elevations, illustrated by the group of desks
located at the front of the American House of Representatives. The Westminster
tradition, in London as well as in capitals of the Commonwealth, favours a
throne-like Speaker's chair placed near the centre of the room. Since the House
of Lords already possesses a throne - a real one for the Queen - it must seat its
presiding Lord Chancellor on the more mundane Woolsack, a large upholstered
seat stuffed with wool from all corners of the Commonwealth.
The repository of great power in modern government is of course the
executive. Thus it is revealing to compare how its presence is registered in
various chamber arrangements. In the United States, with its rather strict
tradition of separation of powers, we should not be surprised to note that no
executive officer, including the President, is recognized by specialized accom-
modation on the floors of Congress, not counting the Senate rostrum
occupied by the Vice-President when he presides over that body. In the
Westminster tradition there is very little overt physical expression of the
executive, which seems logical in view of the theoretically absolute powers of the
Commons and British concepts of cabinet government and ministerial responsi-
bility. The Prime Minister and other leading ministers are first and foremost
Members of Parliament, and they sit at the same benches as other MPs, albeit
always in the front row on the Government side. Although the monarch is
banned from the Commons, the chamber contains a Box which is a protected
bench located in the corner of the House to the Speaker's right. From it the

12
A. R. Meyers, Parliaments and Estates in Europe to 1789 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1975).
 The Architecture of Parliaments 295

Crown's senior civil servants advise ministers sitting at the adjacent Govern-
ment bench.
Another very different tradition obtains in several European countries and
Japan. Here, ministers and other executive officials have their own chairs or
desks, entirely distinct from those given to legislators. These items of furniture
are placed, moreover, so as to face members of paraliament, not join them. The
officials are situated either in straight rows, along the front of the room, as in
Italy and West Germany, or in concave arcs, as in Austria and Romania.
Typically these ministerial benches have high desk skirts or even frontal walls,
giving their occupants high status and psychological protection. In some
countries, such as West Germany, these benches convey the point that ministers
need not even be members of parliament. Elsewhere the power and prestige of
the executive itself is articulated. Regardless of rationale, the executive's presence
in such a setting becomes the dominant visual focus, overshadowing even the
chamber's presiding officer.
An even stronger statement of executive power is made in parliamentary
sessions held in some communist countries. This is done by placing large
numbers of ruling party leaders and high government officials at a separate set
of several benches. This block of special seating is located behind the central
lectern of the presidium that faces the parliamentary membership. Moreover the
benches are elevated in successive steps, giving their occupants superiority of
height over house members seated on the flat floor below. In both the Soviet
Union and the People's Republic of China literally hundreds of such senior
officials are installed in this highlighted sector of the room, seated behind seven
or eight straight benches that reach across the entire width of the space. On the
wall behind their backs is placed a key symbol of state power, such as a giant
statue of Lenin, as in the USSR, or a huge seal commemorating the revolution,
as in China. At the front of this bastion runs a high desk skirt, a wall, or a row of
potted flowers, firmly segregating those who actually hold power from those
who merely legitimize it.
Turning now to patterns of seating on the parliamentary floor, we recall that
medieval estates were seated in blocks, one to each estate. The Westminster
seating pattern emulates this idea somewhat, in that Government MPs sit in one
block of benches and Opposition MPs in the other (at the right and left of the
Speaker, respectively). Thus Government and Opposition face each other
directly, across a space approximately twelve feet wide. Winston Churchill and
other commentators contended that this arrangement encouraged a two-party
system, but clearly it has not prevented the emergence of third parties in Britain.
While party discipline is rather strong in Britain, it must be kept in mind that,
unlike in the medieval estates, MPs vote as individuals rather than by bloc.
Outside Britain and the Commonwealth countries, the common pattern of
membership seating is very different. Legislators typically sit in a semicircle
facing the presiding officer. The resulting fan-shaped array of seats lends itself to
differentiated placement by political party. Various radial sectors of the
semicircle can be occupied by parties according to their ideological orientation,
296 GOODSELL

literally from 'left' to 'right' from the presiding officer's perspective. This concept
is said to have originated at the time of the French Revolution, when the Estates
General rebelled against Louis XVI by breaking loose from bloc voting. Pro-
monarchy members took chairs to Louis's right while those opposing the status
quo placed themselves on his left. When J. P. Gisors constructed a permanent
hall for the National Convention four years later, he converted a Parisian
theatre for this purpose. Its ampitheatre form lent itself perfectly to a left-right
array, and became the basic model for the seating of members in non-
Westminster parliaments ever since. Moreover this left-right spatial framework
has become the basic metaphor for organizing modern political ideology.13
Variants of course exist. While most chambers are themselves semicircular to
accommodate fan-configured seating, in Germany and the United States the
room is rectangular. There, the semicircle is created by furniture arrangement,
not the composition of the space itself. In some countries, such as Hungary,
Israel and Ireland, the arc is quite deep, creating a horseshoe shape. Also a few
exceptions exist to the rule of seating conservatives on the right and radicals on
the left: in India the government always sits to the right regardless of its party
composition, and in Ireland it is always to the left - because, it is said, the
doorway is on that side of the room. In Newfoundland, which has been a part of
Canada only since 1949, the Government is on the left for a similarly practical
reason: the chamber's potbellied stove is on that side. In the US Congress the
modern practice is to place Democrats on the presider's right and Republicans
on his left, opposite the usual ideological direction. Although this has been the
case since at least the 1870s, early in the nineteenth century the majority party
automatically sat on the right, regardless of ideology. Other differing seating
criteria are by geographic area (Norway, Romania and the federal houses of
Germany and Yugoslavia); corporatist-style social or economic constituency
(Czechoslovakia, Hungary, North Vietnam); and alphabetical order (Ban-
gladesh, Cameroon, Spain). 14
The nature of the furniture provided for individual members can affect their
status as legislators. The greatest status, perhaps, is afforded by the individual
desk and chair, clearly separate and self-standing. This is the case in the US
Senate, for which I have been unable to find an equivalent elsewhere. Certainly
American Senators pride themselves on being individually important public
figures. The opposite extreme is the undifferentiated bench seating found in the
US House and in both UK chambers. Originally American Representatives had
individual desks, but they were abandoned in 1913 as the House grew in size and
became more crowded. Intermediate arrangements in parliamentary accom-
modation around the world are: two-person desk-chair combinations, as in
Canada and New Zealand; segmented adjoining tables, as in Israel, Italy,

13
R. K. Gooch, Parliamentary Government in France: Revolutionary Origins, 1789-1791 (New
York: Russell and Russell, 1960). J. A. Laponce, Left and Right: The Topography of Political
Perceptions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981).
14
Valentine Herman, Parliaments of the World: A Reference Compendium (Berlin and New York:
De Gruyter, 1976), pp. 260-66.
 The Architecture of Parliaments 297

Germany and Japan; and continuous tables with only slightly differentiated
seats (as in separate backs), found in Belgium, Denmark, Finland and France.
While space and cost are factors that inevitably affect members' furniture, its
individualization and quality can say much about the perceived importance of
the single legislator. Perhaps the status of US Senators is uniquely high by world
standards. 15
All parliaments provide special seating for members of the press and public.
This is usually situated in upstairs galleries rather than on the floor of the
chamber itself. In contrast to more recent municipal council chambers, where
outsiders have been brought downstairs, national parliaments prefer to keep
visitors off the floor. This pattern probably indicates both the exclusivity of the
floor and considerations of physical security. In some chambers, such as the
Irish Dail and the new Australian Parliament, galleries are faced with glass for
added protection. Galleries in the American Congress are unusually ample and
open, in that they surround the House and Senate chambers on all four sides.
This design, in combination with other factors, has been considered by some to
reveal Congress's 'democratic' nature. 16 Lords and Commons at Westminster
differ interestingly on this score; in the undemocratic Lords reporters and
'strangers' are restricted to galleries along the rear wall only, whereas in the
Commons the galleries surround the entire chamber, with press and Hansard
reporters placed just above the Speaker.

THE FORMATION FUNCTION

The third contribution of parliamentary architecture to political culture is

Formation, i.e. behavioural consequences that continue on into the future.
These consequences are, however, non-deterministic and by no means easily
predictable. This means we must be circumspect and speculative in approaching
them. Still, the impossibility of precise analysis should not keep us from
recognizing the potentially powerful effect of the mood cues that physical
settings transmit to their human occupants. Because various settings induce
'standing' patterns of expected behaviour within their confines (such as speaking
in a low voice within a church or library), architecture helps to channel and
regularize behaviour. 17 Experimental research on the effects of room character-
istics on vocal behaviour shows that speakers tend to speak more slowly in
larger and more reverberant rooms. 18

15
Paul Goodman suggests that the Senators' separate desks portray them as a kind of state
ambassador. (Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals (New York: Random House, 1952), pp. 171-
72.)
16
John F. Harbeson, The National Legislative Chambers', Journal of the American Institute of
Architects, 18 (1952), 2559-64.
17
Roger G. Barker, Ecological Psychology: Concepts and Methods for Studying the Environment
of Human Behaviour (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1968).
18
John W. Black, The Effect of Room Characteristics Upon Vocal Intensity and Rate', Journal
of Acoustical Society of America, 22 (1961), 174-6.
298 GOODSELL

When Churchill told the Commons in 1943 '.hat he believed its gutted
chamber should be faithfully rebuilt, he declared in what is now a famous
sentence: 'We shape our buildings, and afterwards our buildings shape us.' This
idea was the basis for his proposal to retain an architectural space that had had,
he believed, a formative effect on British political life. A key theme in his 1943
speech was that the intimate atmosphere of Commons should by all means be
kept intact. At 45 x 68 feet (about 3,000 square feet), the House is one of the
smallest parliamentary spaces extant, and with the Prime Minister's urging it
was kept that size. To him, 'a small chamber and a sense of intimacy are
indispensable'. Furthermore, since the benches can accommodate only 437 of
the House's membership of 635, drama as well as intimacy is possible: 'If the
House is big enough to contain all its Members,' Churchill said, 'nine-tenths of
its debates will be conducted in the depressing atmosphere of an almost empty
or half-empty chamber'. On momentous occasions, he went on, all members will
come to hear, creating a 'sense of crowd and urgency'. 19 Another parliamentary
chamber famous for its intimacy is the US Senate, whose floor dimensions are
84 x 51 feet or 4,284 square feet. Most parliamentary chambers are in the 5,000-
8,000 square foot range; reportedly the largest is the German Bundestag, which
at 115 x 112 feet possesses over 12,000 square feet.
Room size is not the only feature to have behavioural effects. A prominent
speaking lectern, solidly built to afford psychological protection, can encourage
members to address their colleagues from one central spot. This tends to
introduce more formality than when members feel free to speak from their seats
or in the aisles. The US House has two lecterns but the Senate has none. In Britain
the Despatch Boxes serve this purpose. Most European parliaments are fitted
with a major lectern, often placed atop a rather high podium or integrated with
a rostrum or tribune.
A 'debate' rather than 'meeting' atmosphere is also induced by acoustical
conditions that permit the human voice to be easily heard, unaided by public
address systems. In some parliaments, such as Denmark, all speakers must come
forward to use the dais microphone; in the French National Assembly and
American House several microphones are scattered throughout the chamber. In
the House of Commons a generalized sound reinforcement system is used, which
amplifies all voices without anyone needing to speak directly into a microphone.
No voice amplification is used in the American Senate.
Seating arrangements also have an impact on behaviour. Westminster-style
opposition seating, across the two Sword Lines woven into the carpet of The
Floor, must surely invite an atmosphere of confrontation between Government
and Opposition. The alternate semicircular or fan-shaped arrangement can
facilitate ideological debate, provided that seats are permanently assigned (at
least by bloc) and are ordered in a partisan array. The presence of aisles or
gangways between partisan segments of seating can serve to accentuate party

19
Robert R. James, ed., Winston S. Churchill, His Complete Speeches, 1897-1963 (New York:
Chelsea House, 1974), Vol. VII, pp. 6869-73.
 The Architecture of Parliaments 299

division; indeed, 'the other side of the aisle' is a frequent reference made in the
halls of the American Congress.
In Europe the division is more complex than a simple dichotomy. Nine radial
aisles divide the Italian Chamber of Deputies and sixteen fragment the French
National Assembly. If fioorplan party diagrams are any indication, these
walkways figure prominently in the splinter politics of both countries. The pre-
war German Reichstag, whose floor was divided into numerous segments by
radial gangways and concentric aisles, was the arena for many a frenetic scene
where competing partisan factions would in unison shout slogans of ridicule or
the German equivalent of 'bravo', 'quite right' or 'very true' depending on the
debating points being made. 20
Partisan behaviour can also be affected by other architectural features.
Division lobbies at Westminster, through which members file to vote, encourage
party discipline by their very location. The 'Aye' lobby is on the Government
side of the House and the 'No' on the Opposition side. (In Lords the equivalents
are the 'Contents' and 'Not Contents' lobbies.) In the less partisan US Capitol
we find not adjoining division lobbies but cloakrooms, whose more relaxed
precincts are used to strike deals rather than march down the line of party
loyalty. Another spatial variable of importance to partisanship is whether
special rooms are set aside in the parliament building for party caucuses. When
these rooms are used exclusively by one party over the years, as in Denmark,
they become museums of party lore and sanctuaries for the party faithful.
The presence or absence of voting machines is also significant. Their use
permits a more rapid casting of ballots but shortens the time available for last-
minute negotiations. When machines are used the very design of the tally display
boards can have subtle implications. Boards that display results by party
emphasize the importance of partisan behaviour, as in France. In Denmark and
Sweden results are shown only by member, but displayed in a miniature
schematic of the chamber floor. On the back wall of the US House votes are
simply listed by name of representative.
Spatial relationships between the chambers can affect behavioural interaction
between bicameral bodies. In India's Parliament House the chambers of the
House of the People and Council of States face onto a common central hall. The
Supreme Court Chamber also faces onto this hall. The fact that the central hall
is round and in the centre of a round building designates the building plan as a
'sociopetal' arrangement that tends to bring people together, in the language of
environmental psychology.21 A separating arrangement, technically termed
'sociofugal', is exemplified by placement of chambers in different sections of a
building, as at Westminster. Lords and Commons are separated by a walk of
over 300 feet through five ceremonial spaces. The House and Senate in
Washington are in opposite wings of the Capitol; the 542 feet separating the
20
Kurt Peschel, 'Council Chambers of the Great Parliaments', Parliamentary Affairs, 14 (1961),
518-33, p. 526.
21
Humphrey Osmond, "Function as the Basis of Psychiatric Ward Design', Menial Hospital, 8
(1957). 23-9.
300 GOODSELL

chambers cannot be transversed by a direct walk. In a system installed before

modern communications, one chamber can tell whether the other is in session by
means of red and white light bulbs mounted in chandeliers hanging outside their
doors.
An example of extreme cameral sociofugalism is encountered in South Africa.
The tricameral system created in 1983 to implement apartheid in its legislative
manifestation established a House of Representatives for Coloureds (those of
mixed race) and a House of Delegates for Indians (Asians). No legislative body
was established for Blacks. The two non-White bodies have their own chambers,
with the Coloureds meeting in the chamber of the former upper house and the
Indians in a space created temporarily in a light court. Meanwhile the White-
only House of Assembly meets in the largest and most historic chamber, built in
1910 to house the Union Parliament. Thus tricameralism in South Africa not
only divides legislators into separate bodies but creates a ranked class system
among these bodies. Tellingly, all three chambers possess an identical Speaker
and secretarial officialdom, all of whom are White officers of the House of
Assembly. When the three bodies meet jointly they do so in the old Union
chamber. On these occasions the Speaker presides over a session in which
Whites are seated on the right (the Government side in Westminster terms), the
Coloureds on the left, and the Indians in the centre - in chairs temporarily set up
between the permanent benches. We have in short a vivid instance of where
architecture not only reflects social policy but seems intended to perpetuate it.
Spatial relationships can also influence interaction between the legislature
and the executive. The fact that the Supreme Soviet meets within the very walls
of the Kremlin is not irrelevant to the powerlessness of that body vis-a-vis the
party's and government's leadership. At the other extreme, the mile and a-half
that separates the Capitol and White House in Washington is similarly not
insignificant to understanding the meaning of separation of powers in American
government. In many countries something of a compromise between these two
poles prevails, as illustrated by the common Whitehall location of Westminster
and 10 Downing Street. In Ottawa the Canadian Prime Minister's offices are
across Wellington Street from Parliament Hill.
In new or expanded parliamentary facilities being constructed considerable
attention is paid to the relative proximity of legislature and executive premises
and the ease of movement between them. The new parliament house for Uganda
consists of two separate structures, a chamber edifice and a tower for ministerial
offices. Footbridges connect the two so as to facilitate the legislative-executive
integration that is at the heart of the Westminster system.22 The Parliament
House of New Zealand, built in 1918, is directly connected to a drum-like office
building built next door in the 1960s, known locally as the 'beehive'. The British
architect who designed the beehive placed the cabinet room on its top floor, with
the PM's suite immediately below. The new building was not without its
behavioural consequences; whereas prior to the beehive ministers were crowded

22
Philip Pullicino, 'The Parliament House of Uganda', The Parliamentarian, 45 (1964), 390-4.
 The Architecture of Parliaments 301

into parliament offices in close proximity to backbenchers, now they enjoy

superior but isolated accommodation. 23
The new Parliament House in Canberra, whose construction is being
concluded as these words are being written, is expected by some to have far-
reaching consequences for Australian government. A gigantic 1,000-foot-square
structure, the new parliament is laid out in essentially four equal quadrants. The
House of Representatives and Senate occupy two of these. The third is taken up
by the public entrance and the fourth is given over to the executive and cabinet.
One analyst, Terry Fewtrell, argues that the building 'will change the style and
the substance of the Parliament' and 'alter the environment of Australian federal
administration'. One reason, he says, is that the building's vast size and the
grand nature of its public entrance will depict the structure not as a parliament
house but as a people's building. Within it, Fewtrell believes, the Prime Minister
receives far more architectural attention than is appropriate for a government
based on Westminster principles. What will develop, he says, is greater
movement toward a presidential system. Also, Fewtrell thinks that back-
benchers will be separated from ministers because of the separate executive wing.
In addition the generous committee space provided will upgrade the importance of
parliamentary committees. 24 In future years observers of Australian politics will
want to look back to determine whether these predictions of such a formative
effect on political culture did or did not come to pass.

CONCLUSION

We have noted numerous examples of how the architecture of the paraliament

house - in many nations the prime physical symbol of government - has
possessed relevance for political culture. The thesis of these pages has been that
parliamentary architecture can perpetuate, manifest and shape political culture.
What is called the Preservation function is illustrated by the building's
occupancy of sacred sites, its symbolization of new constitutional orders, its
celebration of nationhood, and its expression of the stability of the state and the
continuity of legislative traditions, even beyond original territorial boundaries.
The Articulation function is exemplified by how numbers of chambers reflect
numbers of houses; by ways in which house importance and equality are
expressed; by the manner in which royalty, presiding officers and the executive
are honoured; and by how various seating arrangements make statements about
party government, legislator status, and the role of the public and press. Finally,
Formation of culture seems to have occurred - or could occur potentially -
depending on the degree of chamber intimacy, the availability of lecterns and
microphones, the arrangements of seats and aisles, the presence of ancillary
spaces such as division lobbies and party rooms, and spatial relationships
between bicameral houses and between the parliament and the executive.
23
Fergus C. F. Sheppard, 'Parliamentary Buildings, Wellington, New Zealand', The Parliamen-
tarian, 47 (1966), 207-8.
24
Terry Fewtrell, 'A New Parliament House: A New Parliamentary Order', unpublished, 1984.
302 GOODSELL

In reflecting on the importance of our subject, it is one thing to have houses of

parliament located in distant national capitals, with the layout of their inner
chambers familiar only to legislative insiders. Under this circumstance the
impact of parliamentary architecture on political culture is essentially mediated
by national elites. Mass behavioural involvement is limited to tourists who visit
the capital city and watch from upstairs galleries. As this century draws to a
close, however, we are finding that parliamentary architecture and design can
perhaps have a much greater impact on political culture. With widespread
adoption of television coverage of legislative sessions taking place, chamber
interiors and building facades will increasingly become familiar scenes to
ordinary citizens. This could mean that in the future their design and use will
perform the functions of Preservation, Articulation and Formation on a scale
unknown in the past. This may be the true importance of introducing television
to the legislative process, rather than the consequences of citizen education,
institutional reform or legislator exhibitionism expected by some. 25 Perhaps
parliament houses will become stages not merely for a relatively closed
enactment of political rituals, but for widespread projection of political imagery
to the masses, shaping the whole nation's concept of its political self.

25
Ronald Garay, Congressional Television (Boulder, Colorado: Greenwood Press, 1984).