On the Power of Architecture in Light of the Attack on the US Capitol

Yesterday, American democracy sustained an unprecedented attack. A mob breached the US Capitol with the intent to stop the count of the votes of the electoral college. Rioters broke through the entries and smashed windows to invade the building. What we witnessed yesterday was a historic event captured live across television and digital media. I won’t pretend to have much to add to that coverage.

But I was struck by something in the aftermath of the immediate attack. Later in the day yesterday as I watched video replays, I was struck by which rooms looters and rioters trashed and which rooms they left alone.

Surely, we’ve seen the images and videos of looters wrecking private offices. File cabinets flipped over, picture frames smashed. But what struck me was as they moved through the rotunda, as they stood in the Senate Chamber, National Statuary Hall, and the House Chamber, they didn’t smash desks or deface walls.

Indeed, even as I watched congress resume it’s work, I was struck by how OK the spaces looked. The question is why? I believe the answer is simple - the power of design and architecture. Surrounded by the permanence of the great spaces of the capitol, these rioters were awestruck. You can see in the videos how they look like tourists, mouths agape looking up into the domes, admiring the columns and structure.

Like any tourists, they took stupid pictures, made idiotic jokes. But they didn’t attempt to deface the walls, they didn’t shred chairs or smash the wooden furniture. They did that in the generic spaces. The offices, the places that no one can think of as deeply special. But in the remarkable spaces, they were cowed by the power of architecture and design.