“The Empire at the Palace”: The Parliamentary Pavilions of 1911
The Australian and New Zealand Pavilions. Postcard. Bender and Lewis c. 1911.

Robin Skinner
Architectural Historian
Victoria University of Wellington

In August 1910 it was announced that in the following summer there would be a Festival of Empire at the Crystal Palace at Sydenham. Described as an imperial “at home,” this event aimed to increase mutual understanding and goodwill, and strengthen bonds across the British Empire. Five states now had dominion status: Canada (1867), Australia (1901), Newfoundland (1907), New Zealand (1907) and the Union of South Africa (1910). Their pavilions that would be facsimiles at two thirds scale of each respective settler colony’s parliament building. The festival organising committee’s plan effectively called the dominions together, paralleling the gathering of the prime ministers at the contemporaneous Imperial Conference of 1911. Connected by a miniature railway, the parliamentary simulacra can be read as a metonym for the web of empire. A model of the Clock Tower of the British Parliament Buildings rose above the other legislatures, radiating the Westminster system to the far corners of the world.

Despite official support for the event including Canada’s impressive £70,000 exhibit, there were complications. Exhibits were late arriving. When Australia and South Africa refused to fund pavilions, the festival council chair, Lord Plymouth, paid for them at his own cost. Making an ironic reference to some of the colony’s early edifices, an Australian politician later informed his fellow senators that their “disgrace” of a display was housed in “a wattle and daub structure.” Lower-than-expected attendance resulted in a large financial loss. While this exposition appears to suggest that the empire was then divided in some matters, three years later —in response to rising political tension in Europe—the governments and people from the far reaches of the realm would join together to wage sustained world war.

Degrees of Opposition and Cooperation: How Seating Plans and Parliament Layouts Give Rise to Political Cultures
Seating plan of the Brussels European Parliament by country; each MEP is shown as a small circle, coloured by country; proximity bubbles of selected countries are shown in larger circles: Greece.

Kerstin Sailer
Associate Professor in Social and Spatial Networks
The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

Building layouts have a profound impact on the way humans interact and relate to one another. In his seminal book ‘Space is the Machine’ Hillier argued that “space is more than a neutral framework for social and cultural forms. It is built into those very forms.” (Hillier, 1996, p. 29)

Investigating spatial form in relation to cultural and social phenomena has resulted in a rich programme of research with a focus on a multitude of different building types, such as museums, hospitals, offices and schools. Yet, parliaments have been mostly overlooked to date by space syntax research with some notable exceptions such as a study of the Welsh parliament building.

This paper aims to bring two space syntax theories to bear in the context of parliament buildings: the theory of interfaces and the theory of correspondence and non-correspondence.

Interfaces, Hillier and Hanson (1984) argued are the relationships between different user groups, mainly visitors (those with temporary usage patterns) and inhabitants (whose social knowledge is inscribed into the building) as orchestrated by built forms. An alternative reading of interfaces was offered by Peponis, interpreting them as distinctive syntactic conditions that are systematically created by a pattern. Those interpretations of interfaces will be taken up in this paper by investigating how buildings create interfaces between different political parties via the structuring of parliamentary spatial layouts alongside seating plans. In particular, partial isovists will be constructed from the seats of parliamentarians in order to analyse the degrees of opposition and cooperation between political parties afforded by building configuration. The plans of the UK parliament versus the German parliament will be used for the analysis. This allows the mapping of two contrasting examples – an opposite bench model as is prevalent in the UK and some of its former colonies, versus the semi-circular model of the German parliament, which is typical of many continental European countries. Taking seating plans into account, Germany presents an interesting example due to its political culture of coalition governments and a spread-out political spectrum of parties reflected in the seating plan.

The second part of the paper builds on the theory of correspondence and non-correspondence, which was defined by Hillier and Hanson (1984) as the overlay between social and spatial relations. Systems where spatial and categorical closeness (such as kinship, class or ethnicity) did not match, i.e. non-correspondent systems were argued to create solidarities thriving on openness, inclusivity and equality. Peponis (2001, pp. xxiii-xxiv) therefore called non-correspondence “a social insurance policy, whereby the strengths deriving from affiliation to social groups are complemented by the strengths derived from affiliation to spatial groups”. This will be investigated using the seating plan and layout of the European Parliament based on visibility and proximity as spatial relations, and fraction as well as represented nation as categorical relation. The degree of non-correspondence in the seating plan can be calculated following the example of workplace seating arrangements as discussed by Sailer and Thomas (2019).

The contribution of the paper lies in the analysis of layouts and seating plans and how they give rise to political cultures with a differential degree of opposition and cooperation built into them.

Peripheral Parliament: Sovereignty, Collective Rights, and Political Representation in the Sámi Parliament of Finland
Photographer: Jan-Eerik Paadar (Ijahis Idja), 2013.
Copyright: Sámediggi Saamelaiskäräjät

Samuel Singler
DPhil Candidate and ESRC Grand Union Scholar
University of Oxford

Sofia Singler
Junior Research Fellow in Architecture
University of Cambridge

This paper interrogates the architecture of the northernmost parliamentary building within the European Union, the Sámi Parliament of Finland, with respect to territorial sovereignty, collective rights, and political representation in Europe. The cultural-administrative centre Sajos, which houses the Sámi Parliament of Finland, was completed in Inari, Lapland, in 2012, to the design of Finnish firm HALO Architects. The building manifests, in architectural form, tensions between sovereign states and indigenous peoples; this paper addresses Sajos as a physical representation of the interplay between Sámi and Finnish collective identities, as well as the nature of democratic participation and political representation in the context of deterritorialized sovereign power. The research synthesises an architectural analysis of the design drawings, competition programmes, and the realised Sajos building with a political theory analysis of legal frameworks and political practices governing the relationship between the Sámi people and the Finnish state.

The nomadic Sámi people have historically inhabited the Sápmi region, which stretches across the northern territories of Finland, Norway, Russia, and Sweden. Since the rise of modern state power, the geographical mobility and economic, political, and cultural autonomy of the Sámi people have been threatened by the territorial division of the Sápmi region, concurrent with state policies designed to assimilate the Sámi people into their respective mainstream national cultures. From the nineteenth century onwards, border closures and incentives relating to land rights and taxation have resulted in Sámi people abandoning nomadism in favour of increasingly agrarian lifestyles and adopting the Finnish language. Assimilationist policies intensified in the context of the Finnish post-war project of building a welfare state, resulting in the increasing movement of Sámi towards more permanent domestic spaces—albeit usually complementing rather than replacing traditional temporary dwellings such as goahti and lavvu—and in the planning of ‘Sámi suburbs’ in line with Finnish master planning conventions.

The development of international law on indigenous peoples’ rights has made the relationship between the Finnish state and the Sámi people more complex. Reflecting the emergence of indigenous rights movements in the latter half of the twentieth century, the Sámi Parliament of Finland was founded in 1996. Having initially congregated in an old student dormitory in Inari—deemed dysfunctional and insufficiently dignified by the elected officials—the Parliament commissioned an enquiry into a purposebuilt parliamentary building in 2000. The conflicting demands of territorial sovereignty and indigenous rights, a point of contention in international law, informed the brief of the subsequent architectural competition. Agreements such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples strike a compromise by recognising the right of indigenous peoples to ‘self-determination’ (Article 3) but limiting this right to issues of cultural development and ‘their internal and local affairs’ (Article 4), explicitly subordinating the right to self-determination to territorial state sovereignty (Article 46). So too, the competition in Finland—partially funded by the EU—called for a ‘Sámi cultural centre’. Alongside the Parliament, the centre would include various cultural functions and serve as a ‘symbol of Finnish Sámi self-determination as well as their living and developing culture’. The promotion of Sámi culture was evident, yet references to economic and political autonomy were scarce; the tensions between sovereign power and self-determination were also reflected in locating the Northern Finland Regional State Administrative Agency within the centre alongside the Sámi Parliament.

This paper undertakes a politico-architectural analysis of the winning submission Sajos with respect to the relationships between the Sámi people, the Finnish state, and the international community. These themes are relevant beyond the remit of indigenous peoples’ affairs, as they relate to broader contemporary dynamics of contested sovereignty and its deterritorialization. Understanding these broader issues is crucial to grasping and reconceptualising collective identities, democratic participation, and political representation in an age of globalization. This is particularly true within the European Union, characterised by a historically unique configuration of national and supranational authority; subnational forms of political representation and recognition only add to the complexity of the EU’s multiscalar politics.

The Forgotten Case of the First Italian Parliament: Medievalist Ephemerality, State Building, and Glorification of the House of Savoy
M. Giacomelli, Ouverture du Parlement Italien, 1861, from L’Illustration: Journal Universel, 2 March 1861.

Tommaso Zerbi
Historian of Architecture
University of Edinburgh

‘Today, the eighteenth day of February of the year one thousand eight hundred sixty-one, reigning Victor-Emmanuel II, the Italian Parliament opens in Turin.’

On that day, Victor-Emmanuel II of Savoy-Carignan opened the first sitting of the Italian Parliament. On 17 March, the last King of Piedmont-Sardinia was proclaimed the first King of Italy. These key moments in the construction of the Italian state took place in the chamber that had been built at the rear of Palazzo Carignano to temporarily accommodate the growing number of the deputies of the Subalpine Parliament. The ephemeral architecture that hosted the first Italian Parliament in Turin between 1861 and 1865 — and demolished with the transfer of the capital to Florence —, offers an insight into a wider concern then prevalent in Piedmontese politics to constitute relations between the new Italian state and the Crown of Savoy. In cross-disciplinary dialogue with architectural history, medievalism, and modern Italian studies, this paper reveals the unexpected role of medievalist ephemerality in the exercise of power and in entwining national and dynastic narratives during the Italian unification.

If parliamentary architectures, as Goodsell put it, ‘are themselves artefacts of political culture,’ the history of modern Italy is rich in such artefacts. In Turin, one thinks of Palazzo Madama and Palazzo Carignano, that were chosen to host the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia. With the transfer of the capital to Florence (1865) and Rome (1871), the House of Deputies moved first to Palazzo Vecchio and then Palazzo Montecitorio, whilst the Senate moved to the Uffizi and then Palazzo Madama (in Rome). By hosting the first sitting of both the Subalpine Parliament (1848) and Italian Parliament (1861), among this array of architectures Palazzo Carignano is a foundational emblem of constitutional power.

The discipline has produced a great deal of scholarship on Italian state architecture, with a focus on permanent examples. Attention has been directed at the Guarinian Hall in Palazzo Carignano, also known as ‘Aula del Parlamento Subalpino’ because it hosted the Subalpine Parliament (1848–1860). One can also point to the intervention of Domenico Ferri and Giuseppe Bollati for the realisation of the permanent seat of the Chamber of Deputies of the Kingdom of Italy at the rear of the palace (1864–1871). Yet, partially due to a larger historiographical issue for which permanence seems to be favoured over ephemerality as a subject matter of architectural history, less attention has been given to temporary solutions. This is the case of the so-called ‘Aula Comotto’ in Palazzo Montecitorio — the first seat of the Parliament in Rome — and, in Turin, to the building that, hosted the first Italian Parliament.

This paper provides a fresh look on the neglected ephemeral construct, locating it against the backdrop of the delicate transition between the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia to that of Italy. The first part will introduce the project and consider the dialectical symbiosis of engineering and revivalism. The second part will locate it within a wider programmatic reworking of the Middle Ages. By then probing the dualistic nature of the project, the third part will claim that it had central roles in the attempt to forge the intertwined imagery and identities of the Crown and nation. The paper will close with a consideration on the legacy of the ephemeral edifice.

A House in Parliament: The Official Residence of the Auditor and Speaker, 1572-1834
A view of the House of Lords: Old Palace Yard 1808, Monochrome line engraving by Laurie & Whittle, © Parliamentary Art Collection, WOA 1180

Murray Tremellen
PhD Candidate Department of History of Art
University of York

Kirsty Wright
PhD Student in History
University of York

In 1610 Sir John Bingley wrote to the mayor and burgesses of Chester with the claim that he was the best candidate for their parliamentary seat due to his ‘nere habitation and dwelling to the Parliament howse [which] ministereth a greater Conveniency… and readines at hand, then to any more remote.’ The proximity he boasted of was afforded by his official residence as Auditor of the Exchequer of Receipt, a house cobbled together from the former buildings of St Stephen’s College in the Palace of Westminster. The house’s medieval walls were adapted by successive occupants, first the Auditors and later the Speakers, as they carved out spaces to facilitate their official role and project their social status. Examination of the house’s function and architectural development helps to illuminate the fluidity of politics in the palace and the changing position of the Auditors and Speakers in relation to the government.

This paper will explore parliamentary buildings as inherited space, through an examination of the changing function and style of the house at St Stephen’s. The first half addresses the life of the house in the hands of the Exchequer officials. Following the dissolution of St Stephen’s College in 1549, its chapel became the first permanent meeting place of the House of Commons. Its re-use as parliamentary space has been charted through the work of the St Stephen’s Chapel project. However, the chapel was but one part of the broader collegiate infrastructure in the palace that included a two-storey cloister, bell tower and range of vicars’ houses. In 1572 these collegiate buildings were granted to the officers of the Exchequer of Receipt and were adapted, at great public expense, to form opulent living quarters and office space. The first part of this paper examines the initial adaptation and use of the buildings as the Auditors carved out private space for themselves and the value of the site as its ownership was contested.

The second half of the paper will turn to questions of style, as we consider the alterations made to the house following its appropriation, in 1794, for the Speaker of the House of Commons. This was the first time that the Speaker had been granted an official residence, and it marked an important advance in the dignity and status of his role. Like the Auditors before them, however, successive Speakers struggled to adapt the medieval and Tudor structures of the house to suit their social and political aspirations at the turn of the 19th century. In a bid to grasp this nettle, Speaker Charles Abbot (in office 1802-17) commissioned James Wyatt, the leading architect of the day, to comprehensively rebuild the house in castellated Gothic style. The Speaker’s House marks one of the earliest uses of revived Gothic for a significant political building in Britain. Its use was partly a reflection of changing fashions, but it also made a powerful statement of Abbot’s vision for the Speakership. Wyatt’s pseudo-medieval architecture helped Abbot to craft a myth of tradition and permanence around the Speaker’s role. This helped him to consolidate his political position and, ultimately, enabled the Speakers to maintain possession of the house which the Auditors had lost.

This paper charts the decline of the Exchequer, one of England’s most important medieval institutions, and the rise of the Speaker, who remains an integral part of modern parliamentary life. The house adjoining St. Stephen’s Chapel played a key role in shaping both institutions, yet its very existence has now been all but forgotten. This paper is a first step to bring the house back into the spotlight, and finally subject it to the critical scrutiny it deserves.

The Power of Space: Common Features in Parliament Buildings
The National Congress in Brasília, Brazil.
Image source: Geraldo Magela/Agência Senado, “Senado Federal (Flickr)”.

Valério de Medeiros
Affiliate Researcher/Lecturer and Civil Servant
Universidade de Brasília

The article seeks to understand the spatial variable in complex buildings, based on comparative research of Parliaments. The study is aligned with analyses that interpret the organization and functioning of these institutions (GOODMAN, 1985; GOODSELL, 1988; VALE, 1992; HAKALA, 2000; MCKAY, JOHNSON, 2012; COHEN, 2013; MEDEIROS and REBELO, 2014; CALIB and PAZ, 2016; LARA and VEGT, 2017), by assuming that space affects legislative performance.

The research is exploratory and based on the following case studies: Brazilian National Congress (Federal Senate; House of Representatives), Congress of the French Parliament (Senate; French National Assembly); Portuguese Assembly of the Republic; United States Congress (Senate; House of Representatives); United Kingdom Parliament (House of Lords; House of Commons) and Italian Parliament (Senate of the Republic; Chamber of Deputies). In addition, 4 State Assemblies of Brasill are included (São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro and the Federal District), resulting in a sample of 15 Legislative Houses.

The information about each institution was systematized according to previously selected research categories: general data; profile; buildings; spatial characteristics and numerical synthesis (total number of MP; number of inhabitants per MP; total built area; built area per MP; area of parliamentary offices; maximum possible number of assistants per MP; average number of assistants per MP; and average number of employees per MP).

The analysis identified several similar features. The political-legislative nature of the spaces, the inherent symbolic appeal, and the dimension of the set of buildings point to a similarity between the Legislative Houses – which does not depend on the existing government system, whether unicameral or bicameral. Such shared characteristics are: presence of heritage buildings; significant spatial complexity, with impacts on the articulation and logistics between buildings; central and prominent location in urban systems, with abundant supply of public transportation in the surroundings; and existence of a clear relationship between buildings and specific activities, which expresses the concept of building vocation.

The numerical summaries made it possible to conclude that: a) the greater the total number of MP in the Legislative House, the smaller the area of parliamentary offices (R2=50.38%), the smaller the maximum (R2=48.92%) and average (R2=57.23%) number of assistants per MP, and the smaller the average number of employees (R2=64.16%) per MP; b) the greater the built area per MP, the greater the maximum number of assistants per MP (R2=35.18%), the greater the average number of assistants per MP (R2=47.73%) and the greater the average number of employees (R2=34.17%); c) the greater the area of parliamentary offices, the greater the average number of assistants per MP (R2=78.00%) and the greater the average number of employees (R2=63.80%); and d) the greater the number of inhabitants per MP, the larger the built area per MP (R2=69.30%), the greater the maximum number of assistants per MP (R2=51.74%) and the greater the average number of assistants per MP (R2=42.21%).

The results obtained clarify how much space should be understood as an “asset” for the analysis of Parliaments; moreover, it becomes a useful element for the scrutiny of their respective dynamics. The interdependence between the variables points to the role of the built area as an agent for the reading of institutions, referring to behaviors that are recurrent, be it in higher or lower chambers or state representations. Having more space means more power, since larger domains or privileged spaces can be understood, symbolically, as political force.

Floating Parliament
©Studio Octopi

Studio Octopi

In 1963, three new Woolwich Ferries were launched. In 2018 these TfL owned ferries were decommissioned. HMS Parliament was a 2017 proposal for the relocation of the two chambers to the decommissioned Woolwich ferries during the palace restoration works. Once it was established that each chamber could comfortably fit on a ferry, the team developed working designs for the reuse of these publicly owned assets. The proposals identified an achievable, affordable and a sustainable response to relocating parliament.

The proposals were costed by Jackson Coles and came out substantially cheaper than any of the other publicised options for a temporary Parliament. The designs were subject to a preliminary consultation with the Port of London Authority and MPs.

With simple dry dock alterations it was established that each ferry could carry up to 1100T, significantly more than in their original operation. The parliamentary offices located on the central ferry could be prefabricated from steel and timber lightweight modules, transported by river and craned directly onto the ferry hulls from barges for rapid assembly. The modules could come fully-clad and be designed to be demounted and redeployed after parliament’s use. The Lords and Commons chambers will be formed from elegantly expressed hybrid construction all erected on the ferries outside the palace. Again, these could be detailed to permit dismantling and future reuse as a community or school assembly building.

Securewest International recommended that the security plan for HMS Parliament be an extension of the current physical and information security plan/measures for the Houses of Parliament. Initial security considerations were taken into account by the design team in drawing up the concept, reflected in the employment of a boom, no low level external access and other structural measures.

Architect: Studio Octopi

Marine Engineer: Beckett Rankine

Structural Engineer: Expedition

Naval Architect: Houlder

Quantity Surveyor: Jackson Coles

Risk Management: Securewest International

©Studio Octopi
©Studio Octopi
©Studio Octopi
©Studio Octopi

Pop-Up Parliament
Proposed photomontage in context

Max Dewdney and No-To Scale

Project Description

Pop-Up Parliament is a temporary summer pavilion on Regent’s Canal that will be an informal space for talks and debate aimed at engaging young people with politics. The pavilion will be moored within Hoxton Dock and house a publicly accessible library of political material provided by Hackney libraries/museums.

Built on an existing steel barge the Pop-Up Parliament is an open-air structure with a light yellow coloured transparent roof that contains a debating chamber and reading space for up to 30 people. The seating contains storage for up to 200 books and the pavilion has outdoor lighting and a microphone for talks.

Pop-Up parliament creates a transformational space and atmosphere for young people to explore ideas around change, politics, education and design. The pavilion will be coloured in a magnificent yellow light that offers an alternative cultural space from the everyday, a temporary structure for young people to make their own positive contribution to the future.

Max Dewdney Architects are locally based in Hackney. We specialise in community, cultural and exhibition design projects. We create playful and interactive spatial experiences out of sites diverse in size and scope. Our design approach focuses on collaboration and innovation, using colour for place-making and transformational spaces. We also teach and work with young people.

Events / Benefits

• Youth debating chamber

• Design summer school

• Reading space / pop up library

• Storey telling space

• Fund raising space

• Covered space for all weathers

• Space for collaboration

• Alternative space for young people’s ideas

Proposed photomontage in context
Proposed floor plan
Proposed exploded axonometric
Parliament of Plants
Parliament of Plants, from the original painting “The House of Commons “ of Karl Anton Hickel (1793-1794)
Exhibition, What is radical today“, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2019)
Curator Gonzalo Herrero Delicado

Celine Baumann
Landscape Architect
Celine Baumann Studio

In order to cope with the current ecological collapse and the upcoming sixth mass extinction, we need to be able to, in the words of Donna Haraway, “play string figures with companion species” and “refuse human exceptionalism”. It is high time we redefined our role amongst other species, considering the natural world as a network of relations that is multifaceted and intersectional.

In recent years, scientists, botanists and scholars are increasingly probing the notion of plant sentience. Indigenous relations of mutual care and assistance shared between humans and nonhumans are being acknowledged more widely, corroborated by recent research in the field of plant neurobiology and arboreal communication. Switzerland reported on the issue of vegetal dignity, setting a frame of reference towards “the moral consideration of plants for their own sake”. While the Anthropocene fosters the myth of human supremacy, a post-Anthropocene view embraces the notion that plants are our oldest teachers and share stories about their more-than-human knowledge.

The Parliament of plants proposes an urban environment where the wisdom of plants is highly valued, where the flora is on equal terms as the humans inhabiting the planet. Citizens have a great respect for their knowledge of social and economic biotopes, as well as their deep knowledge of natural processes. The woody, leafy, and flowering beings head the parliament of the sixth city since its founding, becoming the first green democracy known to the world. The Parliament of Plants gives voice to the botanic world, addressing issues of race, gender, and normativity from an intersectional perspective. By opening a postanthropocentric space for reflection, this parliament challenges the belief that matter and intelligence are disassociated, considering flora as something more than a mere commodity. It explores the power of trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses as a source of inspiration and it poses alternatives in the way we design and act in our current times of political uncertainty and climate change.

With similar protocols to those currently used in the legislative arena, in this parliament of vegetation, plant legislators from different origins convene on a daily basis to debate current issues. Yet in contrast to the constant confrontation and tension found in “human” political contexts, this parliament of plants usually comes to a consensus and manages to come to agreements —despite having divergent views—because its members are aware of the importance of taking measures and acting decisively in areas regarding ecology, inclusion, tolerance, and diversity, with the understanding that their administration can only act towards the common good, basing their decisions on the principle of mutual care and support.

Parliament of Plants, Photography Galerna (Ángela Losa / María Eugenia Serrano)
Exhibition „Twelve Cautionary Urban Tales“, Matadero, Madrid (2020 – 2021)
Curator Ethel Baraona Pohl
The Woodland Parliament
Aerial view, The Woodland Parliament

Elin Soderberg
Architectural Designer

If there is one mythology that unifies the Swedish people it is that of the forests and the trees.

Madeleine Von Heland (art historian)

Introduction

The Swedish Riksdagshus (eng: Parliament) is in need of renovation and under the project title ‘The Parliament of the Future’ the Swedish government is currently preparing for a temporary relocation of the Riksdag while these repairs are being carried out. Concurrently, the year 2021 will mark the 100 year anniversary of Swedish democracy, signifying an important juncture to review the current state of Swedish political culture and norms of governance.

Apart from its symbolic significance, the Riksdagshus is a key instrument of political life that through it’s spatial configuration affect the conditions in which governance can be exercised. Thus, its architecture plays a significant role in shaping political practices, ideologies and a national identity.

Situating the investigation within the context of The Parliament of the Future, this project will disuss how a contemporary revised Swedish Riksdagshus might alter the way in which power is mediated. Placing environmental awareness at the centre of the architectural imagination, the Swedish forest will be used both in its literal sense and as a concept, to question the monumental manifestation of the current Riksdagshus as an appropriate expression for asserting Swedish political culture and national identity.

The forest as blueprint for Swedish political culture

With two thirds of the country covered by woodland towering firs and spruces, some rising 40 meters tall, delineate the . The Swedish people have always had a strong connection to these forests. Here, we find our roots. The forest is were people lived and worked, and where they found the material for their buildings, furniture and fuel. Moreover, beyond merely a commodity, wood was regarded as a living material, permeated with myth and folklore, and utilised in a way that celebrated its innate structure.

Because Sweden remained a largely rural society until well into the twentieth century, closely tied to the world of the forest, the region retains an intimacy with this landscape. The forest susurrates through Swedish art, literature and language. Our surnames also reveal how we associate ourselves with the trees: Granberg (Fir-Mountain), Lundgren (Grove-Branch), Björkman (Birch-Man), Almark (Alder-Land).

Moreover, the forest has always served as a stage for mythology and folklore, and as a mirror for the . The Swedish term for insane, ‘galen’, means ‘praised by trolls’, and when we have nightmares we allude to the forest-like creature Maran. Thus, the forest also assumes a metaphysical place within the minds of the Swedish people – a state of being.

In the dialogue between humans and the natural world we formulated our sense of self, our national identity and political ideology. Thus, the forest has formed the political and cultural blueprint for our social order.
However, while our old-growth forests represented the wild and untamed, our modern forests are characterised by managed uniformity. Furthermore, although the Swedish forests are once again growing and the timber industry yields a sustainable net increase of forest mass each year, only 0.5% of the biologically important primeval . Even the Swedish National Atlas no longer account for ‘forest’, but instead of ‘forestry’.

Shifting landscapes

Landscapes, whether natural or political, are always shifting. However, what happens with our national identity, collective consciousness and with our inner selves when human activity is no longer in dialogue with an evolving natural world? The old creatures of the forests do not seem to thrive in the managed woodlands of today. Perhaps what gets lost is, above all else, something outside of ourselves that can meet our gaze.

Titled The Woodland Parliament, this project proposes an alternative seat for the Riksdag, relocated from its current site in central Stockholm, to the depths of the Royal National City Park forests at the fringes of the city. Seeking to explore an alternative state for society and the environment by negating our increasing disembodiment from the natural world, the project argues for a revived Swedish timber architecture that once again draws upon the primitive memories of the forest.

Sections through The Woodland Parliament
Entrance elevation, The Woodland Parliament
Forest view, The Woodland Parliament
Facade edge axonometric, The Woodland Parliament