What urban design tells us about democracy
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What can ancient urban design reveal about democracy?
Hey there, this is Flora Lichtman, and you're listening to Science Friday. Today we are hitting the streets, the dusty, ancient streets, looking for clues about the origins of democracy. Researchers writing in the journal Science Advances explain how the design of ancient temples, plazas, cities can tell us how a civilization was governed. So what does ancient architecture reveal about democracy? And do the democratic design principles hold true today? Here to chip away at some of these big questions is Dr. Jake Holland-Lulowitz, anthropologist and assistant professor at the Pennsylvania State University. Hey, Jake, welcome to Science Friday.
Hi, guys. Thanks so much for having me.
What does democratic design or democratic architecture look like?
Oh, yeah. I don't know if we can call the architecture democratic, but it certainly reflects kind of ethos and our institutions, which themselves are democratic. And so when we're thinking of democracy, I think what we're thinking of are places that are inclusive, that can hold a lot of people, that are designed to facilitate deliberation and conversation.
Give me some examples from the sites that you looked at.
Sure. At least where I work, in southeastern North America, we're looking for big, huge, round structures. They're much bigger than a house, right? They can fit more than one important family. Maybe they can fit everyone in the village. Maybe they can fit family representatives from lots of villages coming together. And the shape, the circle, is really important, too, because when you're sitting in a circle and we find evidence for benches around the walls, you can see everyone else, right? No one is necessarily front and center, right? It's not like a classroom where all of my students are looking at me and I'm telling them stuff that they maybe need to know. But it really reflects that. basic logic of decision-making in that deliberation and consensus being more important than top-down action.
What about plazas or like the big piazza? How do you read that?
Yeah. Yeah. Plazas are really interesting. And I think they're really complex, too, because they can serve, I think, lots of different purposes. I work on societies who are the descendants of the Muscogee Creek Nation. And square grounds are, you know, center to social and political life. They're where people gather together.
How does Dr. Jake Holland-Lulewicz define democratic architecture?
to reaffirm relationships and strengthen bonds between people and eat great food. And looking at things like the size of plazas, again, can tell us who's meant to be in that space. How many people are meant to get together? You know, is the whole village around the plaza or is the plaza associated maybe with a palace, right? Which could maybe tell us something different about what the purpose of this open space is, right?
Yeah, I know I'm getting into the dusty details here, but like, is it a correlation? Like you see, you know, round buildings and open plazas that are not associated with a palace with democracies? Or is it that you're like, oh, these kinds of spaces tell us that there was there were democratic principles at play?
Yeah, I think they certainly are a great feature for us to identify and begin, as archaeologists, begin to interpret these societies as more collectively or democratically oriented. You know, on their own, they don't tell us everything, but I think they're really great hints.
What about on the flip side? Is there architecture that suggests autocratic government?
Yeah. Well, I think it looks like, number one, it looks like the absence of those kind of big spaces that can fit a huge percentage of the population. And it is the prominence and centrality of palaces. It may be things like the wildly unproportional size of a ruler's house compared to everyone else in the society's house. Those are the kinds of things we might look for to start making an argument that maybe this isn't the most collective or bottom-up decision-making system that we have going on here.
How would the White House read?
This is interesting. I was actually thinking about this this morning.
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