Architecture and power

ancient egypt

The pyramids of ancient Egypt are among the first monumental architectures known to mankind. Their monumental construction required immense resources and manpower. They were not, however, aimed at achieving any rational goal. Above all, they fulfilled a religious role. The pharaohs embodied deities responsible for maintaining Ma’at, the cosmic balance and order of the universe. The pyramids being their burial places, they guaranteed their ability to maintain Maat. The shape of the pyramid was itself significant in that it symbolized the rays of the sun carrying the pharaoh’s spirit to the heavens, thus facilitating his journey to the afterlife. But from a social point of view, these buildings were overwhelming. Filled with treasures such as jewelry, valuable furniture, and other prestigious items surrounding the sarcophagus, they symbolized the pharaoh’s wealth and dominance. The political power symbolized by the pyramids was the guarantee of dominating the people.

metropolis, the city from above

This role of monumental architecture at the service of power was masterfully shown in Metropolis, a science fiction film directed by Fritz Lang. While it was released in 1927, it anticipated a century in advance the futuristic setting of the year 2026. The most expensive production of its time, the film was a critic and commercial failure when it was released, while it is now recognized as one of the major masterpieces in the history of cinema, as evidenced by its multiple influences. Restored several times, in 2001 it became the first inscribed on UNESCO’s international Memory of the World register. Metropolis is a megalopolis made up of a high density of towers of dizzying height. It is divided between an upper town where a ruling class lives in wealth, luxury and entertainment, and a lower town where the working class is oppressed. Maria, a woman from the lower town, tries to promote understanding between the classes and manage to bring workers’ children to visit the upper town illegally. The group is pushed back by the police, but after seeing her, the Metropolis ruler’s son falls in love with her. He follows her down into the lower town and discovers an exhausted worker at his workplace. The rhythm imposed by the machines is infernal and a violent explosion occurs killing dozens of workers.

He then goes to his father to tell him about the extremely difficult conditions in which the workers work and asks him to improve their lives. Seeing that he cannot convince his son of the benefits of this segregative society, he has him followed by a spy. The son returns to the lower town where he takes the place of a worker on the verge of exhaustion, the worker is disguised and goes up to the upper town where he will taste the pleasures of wealth. Meanwhile, revolt is brewing in the lower town …

The film clearly connects an oversized architecture in height dominating without sharing and crushing a population living at its feet. In a way, it is the arrogance of the towers that is directly accused.

The Tower Of Babel

This arrogance of heights recalls the legendary story of the Babylonians recorded in the Bible. The ambition of men was then to build a tower so high that it could reach the sky. But God did not like the claim of his creatures to build the Tower of Babel. To stop them he made them speak different languages in such a way as to make

86 Composting is so hot communication between them impossible and to sow confusion. Thus, before they could complete their gigantic tower, the workers have scattered to the four corners of earth.

Bob Marley used this legendary claim of men to build the Tower of Babel as a metaphor for the functioning of a Western society based on a corrupt and oppressive organization. In his song ‘Babylon System,’ he makes it the symbol of a dominant and hated social order that exploits and oppresses the marginalized and the poor. In the lyrics of several of his songs dealing with this theme (Babylon System, Zimbabwe and Survival), he repeats: ‘The system of Babylon is the vampire, sucking the blood of the victims,’ while he encourages the people to resist by fighting for their rights and freedom.

Contemporary Towers

Powerful people of our contemporary world, whether they are businessmen or politicians, have not escaped the temptation to celebrate their power with very high buildings. A study, however, found out that the peak of skyscraper construction often coincided with a period of economic crisis. Indeed the completion of the construction of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building in 1930/1931 coincides with the great economic crisis of the 1930s. The completion of the towers of the World Trade Center and the Willis Tower in the United States coincides with the onset of the economic crisis of the 1970s. In 1997, in Malaysia and Thailand, the completion of construction of the Petronas Towers and Baiyoke Tower II, the tallest towers in the region, coincided with the onset of the Asian economic crisis . In 2010, the construction of the tallest tower in the world rises to 828 meters in Dubai, coincides within a month with a serious economic crisis in the city-state. These phenomena are explained by the fact that the construction of the tallest towers corresponds to the excess of periods of economic boom which follow periods of crisis.

Rem Koolhaas puts on the cover of his famous manifesto, Delirious New York, a work by Madelon Vriesendorp showing a night scene where two soft skyscrapers (like Dali’s soft watches) are surprised lying in a bed, humorous reference to the fact that in New York, the city of the Ego, increasingly high towers have been reinforced. However Koolhaas relativizes this madness of gigantism, by asserting that: ‘The density of Manhattan is not only a physical density, but also a social and cultural density...its buildings are not only bodies in space, but agents over time.’ This quote expresses Koolhaas’ vision that the city is a complex and dynamic organism comprising not only physical but cultural characteristics. Even if the towers that shape New York embody the omnipotence of bureaucracy, according to the author most of them would not be uninteresting from a social and cultural point of view.

A radically different point of view is developed by Mari Hvattum in her book The Skyscraper Culture. The author asserts that ‘The skyscraper is a spatial manifestation of the logic of capital, an expression of the triumph of economic rationality over social and cultural values.’ This quote highlights a critique of the skyscraper as a symbol of capital’s dominance over humanist values.

anti-social constructs

Do skyscrapers symbolize the power of technology, capitalism and bureaucracy? In any case, the dependence on elevators and multiple security systems is economically costly and bad from an ecological point of view, what is a symbol of success and power does not seem a good thing for social life. While they offer amazing views of the environment that gives a sense of power, they fail to create supportive and sustainable communities. The very height of the towers disconnects from the human scale and from the life developed at street level. The long shadows they cast deprive the surrounding constructions of light and disrupt the character of the place, contributing to a feeling of alienation and urban disconnection. However, we must be realistic, these towers exist and most of them cannot be demolished. But how to solve their nuisances? In contrast to their tendency to symbolize places of power and human oppression, the towers should be repurposed to become public spaces open to their surroundings. Their role could be changed by opening part of the facades and by planting gardens on the upper floors. In these new places creating more informal human gatherings, the tallest towers could be the source of new positive urban sensations.