GeoJournal 51: 129–133, 2000.
© 2001 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.
129
The cityscapes of European capital cities∗
Herman van der Wusten
Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, Department of Geography and Planning, University of Amsterdam, Nieuwe
Prinsengracht 130, 1018 VZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Received 28 December 2000; accepted 28 December 2000
Key words: Capital city, cityscape, urban network, political regime
Abstract
Capital cities are politico-administrative centers. They are command centers, they symbolize authority and also the unit that
is governed. Primarily they are capitals of states, but other governance systems may also have capitals. In the European
context there are now regional capital cities and at least the concept of a European capital. Particularly on account of their
symbolic function but also for the uses made of its appearance in political life, the cityscape of capital cities is an interesting
topic for research. There are different types of capital cities in Europe that give rise to different cityscapes. Existing urban
networks and types of political regime are important in this respect. Although cityscapes are pretty stable, they are differently
perceived over time and uses made of them also change. A research agenda for this intersection of historical, cultural and
political geography should concentrate on the evolution of these cityscapes, their perception and the uses made of them in
the acting out of politics.
Introduction
Rulers do not cope easily with cities, cities are not the exclusive niche for the seats of power. If established in a city,
state authority often has uneasy relations with local government (e.g. the famously strained communications between
German emperor Wilhelm II and the Berlin townhall), state
power has occasionally distanced itself from city life (Louis
XIV to a new palace in Versailles, George Washington to
a so far nondescript place in the neighbourhood, the Dutch
United Republic to the village of The Hague). But seats of
power need a material base, and even if established on a
greenfield site, they become surrounded by their functional
requisites and the supporting population. And the need is
soon felt to communicate their presence so that symbols
are crafted and their images and meanings passed on to
those who should know: subjects and citizens, outsiders who
should be made aware that power and authority are stretched
across certain territories.
Political authority needs to be settled even if temporarily. Princes have moved between places in feudal times and
beyond to make their authority present in the different parts
of their realm at a time when distance-decay of authority
was steep (like the distance decay of attraction of purchasing
power in a periodic market system) and the local possibilities
to feed a surplus population were small. But they moved
between specific places (e.g. the sultan of Morocco until
modern times between Rabat, Marrakech, Fez and Tetouan).
The new system of European governance has long struggled
∗ This piece originates from final remarks made at the conference
where the papers in this issue were presented.
with the question where to settle. The parliament still moves
to and fro, the different functions of European authority have
been established in different places. There is no material
background here, or hardly, predominantly the politics of
symbolism. Political symbols and administrative functions
may also be split and become attached to different spots
(e.g. the Netherlands). Physical planners have sometimes
proposed such differentiations as a beneficial antidote to the
centralization of power (see Abercrombie in Hein’s contribution in this issue). Political authority can now be displayed
on the internet, but the websites where it resides are still
governed from somewhere, more likely a distinctive place
(Mamadouh’s paper).
Capital cities are the addresses of political authority, primarily state authority but also the authority of other governance systems like the European Union, the United Nations,
institutions with a regional vocation below the state level.
The address may refer to central office holders, the different
parts of the administrative apparatus that goes with political
authority, and the symbolism that these places provide in
different combinations. The state and other types of political authority may derive their symbols from their history,
their intended future, and their current status. In the current
historical period political authority is very much dependent
on popular acceptance. The idea of selfdetermination gives
rise to efforts to construct, maintain and underline a common
(national) identity and this identity is expressed in symbols,
that are also part of the capital city function. The expressions
of authority and identity are now closely interwoven. The
display of current status and of symbols of national identity
has internal and external purposes. Internally it strengthens
130
feelings of loyalty and support for one’s international position, externally it demonstrates unity and portrays one’s own
international role in a favorable light.
The capital city functions give rise to or are supported by
the presence of other functions. In earlier times, court life
necessitated the availability of a large servant work force,
of artisans that provided precious goods. In 19th century
Europe, a capital city underlined its symbolic role with
a museum and a university. Nowadays capital cities have
a considerable segment of civil servants in their resident
population. Capital cities also have to provide what Jean
Gottmann called a “hosting environment”, as they receive a
lot of people having business with administrations or politicians. All these functions in their turn attract other service
providers that then become relevant for different purposes
(museum quarters as part of the general tourist attraction,
the hosting environment as an asset in the international conference business, the presence of political authority to attract
functions from a different system of governance).
Each capital city is special, even if in some cases capital
city functions look ephemeral. The imprint of this role often
lasts long after the function itself has subsided (Turin, Petersburg; see on this last example the paper of Gritsai & Van
der Wusten in this issue). The location of capital cities has
long exercised geographers, but politicians as well. There
still is the occasional replacement of the capital (see recent
efforts in Kazachstan and earlier attempts in Nigeria). I will
leave this topic aside in this contribution, as it is less relevant
in the current European context, and concentrate on the capital cities, once they have been established. I will in particular
concentrate on some differences between capital cities depending on time, place and political regime: all capital cities
are special.
Types of capital cities
Many cities are central places in some respect: as providers
of consumer goods and services, as administrative centers,
as religious centers, as military command centers. They may
also specialize in some productive activity at different scales
(small region to world market) such as the textile, steel,
car industry towns. Capital city functions may be inserted
in cities with different profiles: high in different central
place hierarchies or not, highly specialized production or
not. There are capital cities that are simultaneously at the
apex of the national political hierarchy and lack a prominent
position in other traditional hierarchies or lines of production
(Washington, Bern, The Hague). Apart from politics, which
is their core business, they tend to attract a lot of tourism
and conference activity (both of them often mixed with political motives). They are different from capital cities that
are at the apex of several functional hierarchies and sometimes combine this with specialized production milieus. The
classic example is Paris but this also goes for a lot of the
other European capital cities across the continent. In such
cities, politics as a daily activity for professionals is less
predominant, but all attention from the inside and the outside
is focused on these cities and they play a pre-eminent role as
the symbolic national centers. As politics is not exclusively
the city’s core business, the cityscape is not predominantly
impregnated with the demonstration of the reigns of power.
Another important distinction made in Claval’s contribution in this issue is between ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ capitals.
This is the result of two different ways in which politics
is organized: one can try to solve many or few questions
within the realm of politics; these solutions are sought in
a centralized or decentralized way. The realm of politics
has gradually widened over time and this has pushed in the
direction of more heavy capitals: a larger administrative apparatus (think of the enormous expansion of office space).
Totalitarian regimes made politics all-encompassing and the
expanding trend of their capitals mirrored this development.
In the last quarter century, this trend may have come to a
standstill. There was stabilization, not expansion of welfare
state regimes, loss of faith in the problem solving capacity of state-centered politics, retreat of the national state
(but this may result in political centre-formation in other
places). This brings us to the question of centralization and
decentralization. Traditional state capitals may concentrate
all the powers of decision or decentralize them, formally
in a federalist constitution, or practically by decentralizing
administrative competences. In recent years there has again
been a general decentralizing or deconcentrating trend in all
the larger states of Europe and in some smaller states as well.
At the same time, some competences have moved to the
European level. All this has made capital cities somewhat
lighter. Claval’s argument implies that the shape of capital
cities is directly related to the organization of the political
regime.
A different distinction is introduced by Wagenaar in
his contribution stating that authoritarian regimes produce
capital cities that are differently shaped than those by
laissez-faire regimes. This results from the means that these
different political regimes put at the disposal of planning
authorities in order to produce that cityscape. The effect of
political regimes results in this instance from the instrumentation they allow their planners. The general assumption is
that there is a shared ideal of how a capital city should look
based on the classical tradition of Rome, reinvented by papal authority during the Renaissance and then re-interpreted
by European royalty in the baroque age to their final blossoming in the second half of the 19th century when states
transformed into national states and capital cities were again
renovated or built anew. In authoritarian regimes, private
property rights can more easily be tampered with and this
gives rise to a cityscape whose production has been more
centrally coordinated. In this way, a general tendency to
produce a monumental city in the classical tradition emphasising public elements and producing the appropriate
national and state symbolisms, can be more convincingly
executed. Authoritarian regimes are more effective in this
respect.
Finally, capital cities are of necessity simultaneously
places where national decisions are taken and executed,
where international decisions are prepared and meetings for
that purpose are often convened, and places showing to the
131
domestic public and the outside world what the state is, what
the national identity is, and how the polity imagines the
rest of the world in light of its own position. In the capital
cities of current and prospective member states of European
Union Europe all these different aims are pursued simultaneously. While all capitals try to improve their connectivity
and centrality, some are more central in the international networks of cooperation than others. The differences give rise
to subtle distinctions in appearance and atmosphere. These
have probably most to do with the adaptation of the hosting
environment to an international audience as shown in the diversity of restaurants and the rich variety of cultural events,
the ease of overcoming goods and language barriers, the
availability of a wide range of services from schools to shopping goods. Obviously this differentiates between larger and
smaller countries and among the smaller countries between
the more centrally located like Belgium and the Netherlands
and more peripheral ones in Scandinavia and on the southern
and eastern fringe.
So far we considered cities as entities and tried to make
sense of the types of capital city they may be. But it would be
wrong to look at cities, certainly large cities as undifferentiated wholes. Their political milieux are often small zones
known as such: Westminster, Binnenhof (Netherlands), Wetstraat (Belgium). In Gilbert & Driver’s contribution, London
as a capital of empire covers a number of specific spots
within the metropolitan area, each with its own significance
for and reference (also changing over time) to this imperial
past. Brussels is a fascinating example from a capital city
point of view: it provides a stage for a series of capital functions from the Belgian state continuously transforming into a
more federal shape looking for its own place and to the new
administrations looking for their own niche (the Flanders
government, the Francophone Council). At the same time
the European institutions also put their imprint on the city,
not to speak of other international institutions like NATO
(see Lagrou’s contribution in this issue).
How to explain different types of capitals
Capital cities may be cities where the political function is
just one of a number of central or highly specialized functions or they may be monofunctional. Capital cities may be
heavy or light depending on the amount and concentration of
political business, the weight of the political role. Functional
mix and concentration of authority supposedly give rise to
differences in cityscape. Capital cities may demonstrate their
political role in their cityscape due to a firm planning authority or they may not. The international character again
supposedly has consequences for the appearance of cities.
Capital cities may be particularly outward bound, favourably
conditioned to increase their international standing or they
may not. How can these differences be explained? In the
preceding section I already refered to some explanations and
I now try to order them in a few categories.
There are apparently different conditions in the material background of the countries and in the political regimes
of certain periods that give rise to certain types of capital
cities. A particular problem in the analysis of their effects
is the durability of capital city features. Cityscapes of existing large cities can not be changed easily. Obviously more
despotic regimes can do more in a short time. Once established cityscapes endure and even very authoritarian regimes
can not do away with them completely. The study of capital
cities is a sort of archeology where layer upon layer has to be
studied and analysed. In addition, perceptions and appreciations may change over time giving rise to different readings
of cityscapes between population groups and periods. At the
same time, there is apparently a very longstanding evolving
repertoire of capital city formation to which I already refered. The canon of forms that it entails breeds the apparent
uniformity, that despite all efforts to the contrary provides a
common model for a large majority of all capital cities. This
model refers to a plan (monumental roads and vistas demonstrating the central importance of functions, or symbols, or
both), a number of prefered functions (head of state, executive, parliament, judicial branch, government departments,
university, museum, opera/theatre, national symbols), design rules for buildings and symbols needed (in both cases
reference to the classical tradition, to national history, to the
function of the building). All in all, an iconography of the
European capital city.
The state of the urban network at the time of capital
city selection and the position of the initial capital city on
that network internationally and nationally, the dynamics
of industrialization and economic development beyond industrialization all go far to explain the relative position of
the capital city in the network. Politics played a role in
the initial selection (the anti-urban bias in the selection of
Washington, urban competition in the cases of Bern and Amsterdam, command centre considerations in Spain) but only
in very authoritarian countries could economic profiles of
the units in the urban network be seriously affected. A monocephalous urban hierarchy induced by a single exit for international trade and also by politics, once established, makes
for a multifunctional capital city where politics and administration is just one of those functions (examples abound from
Oslo to Athens).
Political regimes then produced heavy and light capitals
and political regimes also gave them their shape. Political
preferences and the state of the urban network go far to
explain deviating Dutch and Swiss choices for their administrative centers. Where politics is concerned with a wide
range of issues and the political authority is concentrated
thus centralized, capital cities are heavy. Paris is a heavy
capital, capitals of communist countries were heavy. The
capitals of East European countries were already heavy before communism as they had to represent recent states that
were formed under selfdetermination and, paradoxically,
had to underline their national identity by centralization of
political power. If London is ‘heavy’, it is first of all because
of its imperial heritage, and secondly because of the expansion of the welfare state. This last argument also goes for the
Scandinavian capital cities.
In more authoritarian regimes, individual leaders’ preferences may show up in the aesthetic preferences demon-
132
strated in the cityscape but primarily authoritarian regimes
are able to produce monumentality because they control
large surfaces and tend to underline their authority using
classical design motives. The expertise to do this is often
made available by internationally operating professionals
and there is also a lot of sheer emulation. Brussels’ renovation in the late 19th century was copied from the Parisian
example. At about the same time, French architects were
active in the newly established countries of the Balkans to
reshape Sofia, Bucharest and Belgrade as internationally acceptable capitals with an eye to an all-European model and
some national signs added. Stalin’s favorite architect Boris
Iofan developed from modernistic beginnings an eclectic
style mixing the classical tradition with indigenous elements
from the rich all-Russian tradition.
The search for indigenous elements is in itself a general
preference that gives rise to a range of results. Where it
becomes the major driving force in the production of the
cityscape, this gives rise to a diversity of capital cityscapes.
A beautiful example is the introduction of what was called
Dutch renaissance, a building style profusely used toward
1900 in the Netherlands to underline a national tradition
that artfully took its cue from a period of general resistance against foreign aggression, where Roman Catholics
and Protestants could each find recognition of their roots
(see Agricola’s paper). The Netherlands, Switzerland and
the German Federal Republic (certainly in its Bonner guise)
are the prime examples of countries with originally ‘light’
capital cities in a multicephalous city network where one
might expect a less monumentalized cityscape with an emphasis on indigenous elements. That is largely true for the
Hague, less for Bern where in a carefully historicized inner city a monumental parliament and government building
has been erected modelled after the Capitol Hill example in
Washington. In Bonn serious efforts to shape a capital city
followed the (finally erroneous) realization in the 1960s that
German partition would be permanent. Modernist principles
were largely followed.
Rome is a very special case where the state had a centralizing vocation that should give rise to a heavy capital. But it
had to be implanted on an existing multicephalous urban network. The choice was for a city that had a very long tradition
as the command centre of a universal religion. There is in the
building history of the Italian government in modern Rome
a constant tension between competition and rivalry with the
papal statelet demonstrated by the location and style of government building plans in a classical monumental tradition
and the idea of a separate, altogether different expression of
the capital city function within Rome that has nothing to do
with the Roman Catholic command center (for one instance
of this continuing tension see Notaro’s contribution).
city formation. In this period, many new capital cities were
instituted, a last series just after the first world war. The
modern era models for capital city formation were set mainly
by France, and partly also by Britain, Austria and Germany
and the US. City design, building principles, aesthetic preferences were all loudly debated and largely agreed. There
are common ideals that took shape in Paris, London, Vienna
and Berlin. This is conditioned by the era of the first expansion of state services and bureaucracies, and also of mass
democracy. It is translated in buildings and the need to craft a
national identity also in the cityscapes. The dictatorships that
came to fruition in the interwar years – bolsheviks, fascists
and nazis – all engaged in their own round of capital city
formation, that was at times spectacular but perhaps more in
its grandiose intentions than in its achievements. Often time
was too short or other priorities took the upper hand (for
illustrations in this issue: Gritsai & Van der Wusten, Notaro).
There is now more interest in the capital city formation in
the other European states in the interwar years and beyond.
It is curious that so far there has only been slight attention
to the effects of modernism and its aftermath on capital city
formation after the second world war, the period of welfare
state expansion and its stabilization. In the current period
another theme that was prominent around 1900 takes a new
turn: the connection of state capitals with capital city formation of alternative governance systems. Just before WWI, the
ideal of an international city took shape where international
cooperation and the maintenance of world peace would be
discussed, implemented and imagined. Various cities competed to take up this international role, The Hague, Brussels
and Geneva among them. It was the beginning of an alternative governance system. Currently, the capital of Europe is a
well-known expression even if we do not know where it is.
And cities ardently compete to host international functions
of all sorts.
There are indications that efforts to underline state power
and national identity are particularly powerful in times of
dispute, contestation, decline or fear. London’s imperial role
was underlined in the interwar years when the empire was
slowly starting to unravel. The town hall at Dam Square in
Amsterdam, the ultimate expression of Amsterdam’s power
was built at the very end of its hegemonial period in the
middle of the 17th century, when power started to slip away.
Two centuries later, German unification frightened neighbours as it was not clear where unification would come to
a halt. The Dutch started to worry about their national identity and their independence, and various elite groups were
adamant to launch all sorts of initiatives to underline Dutch
identity. The Dutch renaissance building style was one of the
outcomes (see Agricola’s paper).
Iconographies: productions and perceptions
Periodization
In the general literature there is a repeated reference to this
all-European tradition from the Romans to the present that
we mentioned earlier. In modern times, the period 1850–
1920 has often been considered the golden age of capital
The restructuring, restyling and rebuilding of capital cities
has often taken the form of special projects. One early spectacular instance of a capital city designed de nuovo is St.
Petersburg in the early 18th century. Practically the same
133
goes for Helsinki in the 1830s and Budapest after the Ausgleich. Often rulers engaged in major projects. The largest and
example-setting instance of such projects is Haussmann’s
reconstruction of Paris in the 1850s and 1860s. These are
much more than projects aimed at the political function
proper. They encompass all spheres of city life. In the case
of Haussmann it can even be interpreted as in the first instance imagining bourgeois life enabled by the functions of
state (see the Opera as perhaps the most central feature of
Haussmann’s redesigned core area apart from the residential
apartment blocs, and the position of the judicial powers close
to the cutting of the two central axes).
Quite a few projects have taken the form of exhibitions
that have then become part of the capital cityscape. In the papers in this issue examples of this last formula can be found
in Rome, Moscow, Barcelona and Brussels. Mussolini’s Fair
was meant to convey a sense of the fascist ideal life style
(see Notaro’s contribution). Moscow’s Agricultural Exhibition was a showcase of the diversity of cultural traditions in
the Soviet Union and was meant to underline state strength
in a joyful fashion as a mechanism of mass entertainment
with educational overtones (see Gritsai & Wusten’s contribution). Barcelona’s successful bid for the Olympic Games
was meant to demonstrate to the world what an attractive city
Barcelona was as a meeting place for special people from all
over the world underlining its (regional) capital city vocation (see Monclus’ contribution). Brussels used the World
Exhibition 1958 to underline its position as an important
magnet for international functions (see Lagrou’s contribution). These exhibitions show once again that capital cities
act as showcases to convey a message of general attractivity,
national identity, state strength, and also position themselves
as privileged windows to the world. In this way they also act
as world centers. Capital cities are also beautified and monumentalized per se. One of the best recent examples is the
effort to make East Berlin into the capital of a real state by
a weird combination of large scale modernism, preservation
and restoration of Prussian tradition and signs to convince
the other side (the television tower with monumental Marx
& Engels just beside). What is again striking is the apparent
extra effort in a situation of uncertainty.
It is not easy to determine whether all these efforts to impress the visitor’s visual perception actually were effective.
It may be that what was meant to inspire awe just invites
derogatory comment. What can more easily be traced is
change of function over time and unintended uses of public
space. Mussolini’s Fair is now the storage place for the National Archives, not particularly what was intended by the
proponent of a dangerous lifestyle. Trafalgar Square built
as a celebration of empire has transformed into a meeting
ground of often radical public protest. Petersburg, Peter’s
effort to Europeanise Russia formed the background of a literature that celebrated the unique nature of Russia. The city
was made into one of the most heavily industrialized places
by the Soviet regime after an initial bout of industrialization
even before the Bolcheviks came to power. In Soviet times,
the city was looked at as the cradle of the revolution as well
as the place where a Russian, pre-Soviet atmosphere was
maintained. In Brussels, there is a constant contest about the
relative importance of all these capital city functions looking
for a place to display their larger significance. The locals
take sides and try to keep urban space for themselves (see
Lagrou’s paper).
Capital cities, steeped as they tend to be in symbolism
and concentrating a highly politicized segment of population
are also often the theaters where big political drama is played
out. The city sets the stage for such dramas indicating places
for action. But such places can be re-interpreted. And these
contests over meanings are part of the struggle. The position
of capital cities as a forum of public discussion and anger
is also dependent on the nature of the regime (and consequently, do we deal with a ‘heavy’ or a ‘light’ capital?) and
with its ability to repress and control in different parts of
the country as against the mobilizing potential in different
parts of the population. The relative balance of controlling
capacity versus mobilizing potential across the state territory (which is very difficult to measure indeed) in the end
translates into different forms of action (see Dijkink’s paper
for a different approach to the same problem).
Research agenda
Geographers have studied capital cities in the past. Locational features have loomed large in that literature and some
attention has been given to capitals as service and control
centers. In this issue we do not want to do away with this
body of work, but we want to add to it.
We have here concentrated on the cityscapes of capitals,
and on their visual impact. This gives rise to three types
of problems. The first is how the cityscape came about. It
is a traditional problem in historical and many branches of
cultural geography to interpret the genesis of the man-made
environment. In this particular instance, we should look for
the background factors that may account for the shape of
the residence of the state power apparatus based on its functional prerequisites, but also on the efforts to imagine state
power and national identity. The second is the perception
of this cityscape, how are the symbols of state power and
national identity understood by different audiences: those
who are part of the state apparatus, public opinion in its
different segments, power holders from foreign countries,
relevant publics elsewhere. And we have to be aware that
the reading of cityscapes changes over time. The third is
the use that is made of the cityscape, the effect it has on
the way politics and public life more generally are played
out. Do certain spaces invite certain audiences? How do
power holders and the larger public appropriate features of
the cityscape to represent their viewpoints and interests, to
impress their audience in the power struggles that are at the
heart of politics?
The papers in this issue touch upon these questions. This
emerging intersection of political, cultural and historical
geography still has a lot in store for the coming years.