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Mediated monuments and national identity

Lawrence J. Vale

To cite this article: Lawrence J. Vale (1999) Mediated monuments and national identity, The
Journal of Architecture, 4:4, 391-408, DOI: 10.1080/136023699373774
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of Architecture
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Mediated monuments and national

identity

Lawrence J. Vale Department of Urban Studies and Planning, MIT,

Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Introduction tions that will be easily forsaken. Increasingly,

This paper explores the relationship between polit- however, individuals in many countries have gained
ically charged architectural monuments and the opportunities to choose their own experiences and
media campaigns constructed to control (or discover their own sorts of monuments, due both
subvert) their interpretation, arguing that the two to greater economic prosperity and to the person-
are increasingly inseparable. Using an analytical alised and ‘narrow cast’ media of television and
approach developed by political scientist Murray the internet. Business, cultural, and governmental
Edelman, the paper briey surveys the means by élites must cope with a diffusion of control over
which large public buildings convey political power. images and, now more than ever, still need ‘ofŽ-
It then considers examples of extreme efforts by cial’ sorts of architectural monuments to demon-
authoritarian regimes such as Nazi Germany and strate their ongoing power and legitimacy. In an
Fascist Italy to use the built environment as a means image-saturated world, such ‘petriŽed memories’
to interpret national identity and forge politically cannot ‘speak for themselves’; in increasingly plural
useful connections to the past. The paper then societies there is rarely a commonly understood
identiŽes continued evidence for this practice in the cultural code. As a result, the twentieth century
politicised urbanism of several developing coun- marks the ascendance of mediated monuments.
tries, briey discussing examples in Malaysia and Mediated monuments are monuments that are
Sri Lanka, and providing more extended discussion inseparable from the media campaigns conducted
of two cases: the twenty-year attempt by the to construct (and constrict) their interpretation.
regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq to develop and Coterminous with the rise of public relations as a
interpret the ruins of Babylon for political gain, and profession, this past century has brought a new self-
the century of contested efforts to interpret the consciousness about building city symbols (such as
ruins of Great Zimbabwe by successive generations Sydney’s Opera House) and, especially, national
of Rhodesian colonialists and Zimbabwean nation- symbols of modernity and arrival (such as India’s
alists. The paper concludes with a call to under- Chandigarh, Brazil’s Brasília or, more recently,
stand the media dimensions of all politically China’s Three Gorges Dam, and the new centres
afŽliated architecture, and stresses that this should and mid towns of many East Asian cities). For most
be seen as an aspect of urban design, rather than regimes, however, the challenge to construct for-
limited to single buildings. ward-reaching symbols has been matched by an
Architecture and urban design have always equally pressing need to build links to the past. This
performed important roles in the clariŽcation of process of city-imaging (and nation-imaging)
spatial and social order, and these are not func- involves the construction of visually enhanced

© 1999 The Journal of Architecture 1360–2365

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and national identity
Lawrence J. Vale

narratives of an idealised heritage designed to serve days, we rarely confront such architecture in its full
an equally idealised future. historical cross-section. When we do, for example,
The large public buildings and private corporate at the Louvre – where fortress, palace, museum
structures that form the principal monuments of and glass pyramid now stand simultaneously
the contemporary city serve a dual function. Their revealed – the result can be profound. In most
monumentality marks them off from the rest of the other places, we see only the winner that came
built environment, and this scale change conveys out on top, and even sites that are explicitly archae-
two signiŽcant social messages. To most of those ological or ‘historical’ in intent most often choose
who come as visitors the scale shift reminds them some single period of glory around which to convey
that, as political scientist Murray Edelman has a particular moment in time.
argued, they ‘enter the precincts of power as clients For many powerful regimes in the twentieth
or as supplicants, susceptible to arbitrary rebuffs century as before, however, architectural and
and favours, and that they are subject to remote urbanistic authoritarianism has retained its appeal.
authorities they only dimly know or remotely Whatever the sweeping promise of architectural
understand.’ 1 At the same time, Edelman points modernism, this century will also be remembered
out, those who work in such exalted structures for its rearguard actions. Sponsors of new construc-
have their own power legitimised by the grandeur tion, as well as benefactors of restoration, have
of the setting in which it is exercised. Power and continued to lay claim to power through appro-
powerlessness are conjoined, and mutually rein- priating the image, metaphors, or ordering princi-
forced through the theatricality of architectural ples of past architectural styles. Often, they have
monuments. incorporated the remnants of past structures, and
In earlier eras, it was possible to make such frequently they have reclaimed the sites of past
claims quite directly, through overt physical juxta- triumphs when constructing new buildings. As
position of the buildings of one culture on top of Edelman puts it:
the rubble of its quashed precursor, a relationship Especially subtle, powerful, and common are
often made more poignant by the ongoing ability buildings that reinforce a belief that people’s
for rival subgroups to continue to Žnd aspects of ties to a heroic past or a promising future are
their own identity in the resultant melange. From their important identities: that the immediate
Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock erected upon the effects of their actions are trivial compared to
remains of the Jewish Temple Mount, to Cordoba’s their historic mission.2
cathedral-draped mosque, to Mexico City’s In Mao’s China, as in the former Soviet Union, the
conglomeration of Aztec, Spanish imperial, and leadership consistently manipulated old and new
independent Mexico in the Zócalo, the processes monuments in their capital cities in the effort to
of political and cultural legitimisation have used legitimate their claims to rule. It is worth briey
brutal methods to create memorable forms. These revisiting these extreme cases, since they illustrate
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two key phenomena that are present in less- Figure 1. Giant

extreme cases, as well: Žrst, the manipulation of portrait of Mao over
urban design to appropriate the spatial power base the entrance to the
‘Forbidden City’
of an old regime for use in the identity formation
(photograph by T.
of a new one and, second, the dissemination of
Luke Young).
iconic images of these settings through staged
media events.

Architectural authoritarianism: Mao, Stalin,

Mussolini and Hitler
Mao’s China symbolically and literally opened parts
of the ‘Forbidden City’ to ‘the people’ after 1949,
yet simultaneously turned the gateway to that city
into the world’s most powerful billboard, adver-
tising the personal power of the leader (Fig.1). By
re-designing Tiananmen Square from a once-
narrow T-shaped palace approach into a vast
rallying ground intended to hold a million Party
faithful, the Communist regime orchestrated
forbidding control of the once-forbidden city’s
image, a control surrendered only briey since,
during the uprising of 1989.3 To a global audience,
Mao-era China was portrayed through its stage sets
and, unintentionally though similarly, through the
garish multiplicity of ubiquitous Warhol portraits of tune, from ‘God Preserve the Tsar’ to the ‘Inter-
the Chairman. nationale.’4 And, as would later happen in Beijing,
Like Mao, the leaders of the Soviet Union recog- the new regime used the plane beneath the wall as
nised that architectural history could be manipu- a display zone for its power. To a Western press
lated in their favour. Soviet leaders chose to locate often bewildered by the internal power struggles of
their power base in the traditional elevated precinct the regime, the periodically staged photographs of
of the Kremlin, despite the reservations of some the leadership against the background of crenelated
revolutionary leaders in 1917 who pointed to the brick, graphically illustrated who was in and out of
need for a spatial disjuncture from the realm of favour. The term ‘Kremlin,’ in fact, became not a
czars and Orthodox clerics. Predictably, perhaps, the location, but a metonym for the regime itself. Yet
bells of the Saviour’s Tower simply changed their such ‘Kremlin-watchers’ watched not a regime but
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and national identity
Lawrence J. Vale

a parade of symbols: Lenin’s Tomb became the athe- been born precisely two thousand years before. His
ist Ka’ba for pilgrims to a mechanised Mecca, while goal, stated explicitly in speeches, was to make
tanks and aircraft passed in front of a masonry ‘Rome appear marvellous to all the people of the
screen like some endless loop of Žlm (Fig. 2). Red world,’ as ‘vast, ordered [and] powerful’ as it was
Square, instead of a market place, was now an ide- in its imperial heyday.5 To mark this august bimil-
ological space. The architecture of the Kremlin lennial occasion, he championed construction of
remained substantially unaltered, but the media Piazzale Augusto Imperatore around the excavated
representations now showed it from a different remains of the circular imperial mausoleum; two
urbanistic perspective: not as a landscape of cathe- sides of
drals and palaces, but as a wall-dominated tableau. the square were given over to ofŽces for the
Once again, legitimisation of the present depended National Fascist Institute of Social Insurance, whose
on urbanistic appropriation of the past and medi- façades included friezes depicting comparisons
ated representations of the new hybrid result. between Roman and Fascist symbols and weapons.
Similar appeals to architecture for legitimation For Mussolini, it would seem, ‘social insurance’
have characterised other powerful regimes through- depended upon architectural foundations.6
out the twentieth century. Rome, like Athens, was Hitler, too, looked to Rome as a wellspring for
a nineteenth century re-invention as a capital, res- his architectural megalomania, but obviously lacked
cued from provincial obscurity by ambitious rulers the spatial convenience of such monuments in
eager to capitalise on past reected Berlin (its extensive museum collections notwith-
glories. Whether to mark Italian uniŽcation, the standing). Undaunted, he passed along sketches of
rapprochement of church and state, or Fascist party a vast triumphal arch and a Pantheon-like hall to
control, the city rapidly became a battleground of his architect Albert Speer (drawings which, eerily,
monuments. Terragni’s unexecuted design for were made many years before he ever gained
Mussolini’s Roman headquarters took its massing power). Speer wholly embraced Hitler’s ambitions,
from the Basilica of Maxentius across the street, and extended them urbanistically, always exhibiting
and borrowed its prominent balcony from the papal a special interest in surpassing the past in terms of
perch at St Peter’s. It was sited midway between sheer bulk. For both Speer and Hitler, the word
the Piazza Venezia and the Roman Coliseum along ‘monument’ seemed to mean something very
the brutally created Via dell’Impero that sliced its nearly synonymous with monumental size.
way through the ruins of the Imperial fora. In his memoirs, Speer did not seem to be able
Mussolini sought every possible way to impose him- to write about his buildings without explaining the
self upon the historical fabric of Rome and, in so extent to which they were to be larger than some
doing, to enter a new and parallel chapter into its well-known historical ediŽce. He touted Berlin’s
history. Most famously, he sought to ally himself unbuilt Great Hall, intended to hold ‘between
with the Žrst emperor Augustus, deemed to have 150 000–180 000 persons standing,’ as ‘the
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Figure 2. Red
Square, Moscow
(photograph by the
author).

greatest assembly hall in the world ever conceived Pergamum altar’ (itself already transported to a
up to that time.’ He described it as ‘essentially a Berlin museum) had ‘a length of thirteen hundred
place of worship’ and wished that ‘over the course feet and a height of eighty feet . . . almost twice
of centuries, by traditions and venerability, it would the length of the Baths of Caracalla in Rome.’ His
acquire an importance similar to that St Peter’s in gallery at the new Berlin Chancellery, Žnished in
Rome has for Catholic Christendom.’ As Hitler’s 1937, was ‘twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors at
sketch portended, Speer saw his work as modelled Versailles. ’ The still larger palace he soon designed
on a gigantic Roman Pantheon, but one so huge to replace this Chancellery, part of a largely unre-
that the oculus itself (152 feet in diameter) would alised plan for Berlin’s gargantuan new centre, was
be ‘larger than the entire dome of the Pantheon to have been 150 times larger than the Chancellor’s
(142 feet) and of St Peter’s (145 feet),’ with an residence in Bismarck’s day: ‘even Nero’s legendary
interior that ‘would contain sixteen times the palace area, the Golden House, with its expanse
volume of St Peter’s.’7 of more than eleven million square feet,’ Speer
A similar consciousness about the transformation claimed, ‘would be outstripped by Hitler’s palace.’8
of scale is apparent in Speer’s descriptions of his Clearly this architect, like his patron, sought to use
other commissions for the Third Reich. The Zeppelin architecture and urbanism to make the Third Reich
Field at Nuremberg, while ‘inuenced by the the legitimate heir to past empires. For Hitler, it
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and national identity
Lawrence J. Vale

was not enough to defeat his enemies in battle; church – in which relationships between lords and
he had to beat them architectonically as well. As those dependent upon them were architecturally
Speer put it: cast in stone and separated by unambiguous walls
Hitler liked to say that the purpose of his – the modern era of nation states calls for multiple
building was to transmit his time and its spirit allegiances and alliances, often to be upheld across
to posterity. Ultimately, all that remained to great distances. Especially in cases where single
remind men of the great epochs of history was states encompass multiple would-be ethnic nations,
their monumental architecture, he would architectural and urbanistic efforts to articulate a
philosophise. What had remained of the single ‘national identity’ are deeply controversial. I
emperors of Rome? What would still bear have argued elsewhere that most of what is often
witness to them today, if their buildings had built to buttress ‘national identity’ is really about
not survived? Periods of weakness are bound three other more basic needs: the need to re-assert
to occur in the history of nations, he argued; the sub-national identity of the sponsoring regime
but at their lowest ebb, their architecture will by equating its own speciŽc ethnic heritage with
speak to them of a former power. . . . Our ‘the national’; the need to extend international
architectural works should also speak to the identity through staking some new claim to note-
conscience of a future Germany centuries from worthy modernity; and the need to develop the
now.9 personal identity of the client or designer, who
We may well be thankful that Hitler and Speer’s views any single building project as a highly indi-
plans for Germania were never realised, but the vidualised imprint of self.10
substance of these remarks about the political
power of architectural monuments continues to be Kuala Lumpur’s Petronas Towers: pillars of
upheld, even by regimes far less outrageous than the global economy
Hitler’s. Every country confronts examples of this struggle
among national, sub-national, international, and
Architecture and nationalism personal impulses. Similarly, every place invokes
As societies have grown larger and more complex, some aspect of heritage to justify present-day
the built environment has been asked to clarify and actions. In Kuala Lumpur, we have the emergence
reinforce diverse kinds of identities, often ones held of the Petronas Towers – globally hyped as the
quite tenuously. Modern India, for example, re-uses world’s tallest twin skyscrapers – a building venture
for its own purposes the ceremonial axes once that represents not simply the nationalism of the
designed to demonstrate the power and dominion Malaysian oil monopoly (which occupies one of the
of the British Raj, and has invented hybrid tradi- towers), but also the sub-national claims of
tions to Žt the hybrid space. In lieu of the pre- Bumiputra Malays, the international aspirations of
modern patterns of absolute rule by crown and a regime seeking visual evidence of its rightful place
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in a global economy symbolised by marketable the Sri Lankan press constructed a thorough
skylines, and the personal ambitions of Prime mytho-history for the site, one that both exalted
Minister Mahathir Mohammed himself. Moreover, and exaggerated the parallels between past glories
as architect Cesar Pelli assures us, the Petronas and present potential. The result was a two-island
Towers are based on Islamic geometric principles master plan, conjoining the parliamentary complex
and ‘respectful of local traditions.’11 with the ruins of the ancient kingdom, and linked
The towers are also based on another kind of by what was termed a ‘cultural grove,’ replete with
tradition: the struggle to host the ‘world’s tallest a series of Buddhist ‘meditation centres’ – making
building.’ Pelli had some leeway in the choice of clear exactly which aspects of the culture deserved
design, of course, but assertion of unsurpassed such powerful centrality.12
height was an explicit part of the commission, just The Malaysian and Sri Lankan examples are but
as global dissemination of this newly staked claim two instances of a broader trend: the coalescence
was an intrinsic aspect of its production. As a medi- of media, monument and identity. It is not just that
ated monument, the Petronas Towers could be architects and their patrons have championed
marketed as a metonym for the Malaysian ‘historic’ references and re-occupied historic sites;
economy (unfortunately, like all spike-shaped build- it is also that they have been able to rely on the
ings, its form has equally steep up-sides and down- media to shape public interpretation in ways that
sides). In any case, the Petronas Towers dramatically legitimate the uses and abuses of history in service
enjoined Malaysia in a battle that, until recently, of the desired package of identities.
had only attracted the United States and Europe. For any struggling nation state emerging from
In the PaciŽc Rim of the 1990s and beyond, we centuries of outside domination, the common
are witnessing a global war of images. impulse is to identify and publicise the deepest
possible historical claim to the territory now
Sri Lanka: a civil war in site planning occupied. The aims are ambitious: the new regime
Sometimes image wars and real wars are linked. must convince an international audience (and its
In Sri Lanka, a Buddhist Sinhalese-led government own people) of the legitimate links to a pre-
facing the prospect of civil war with its Hindu Tamil colonial past. Most often, this has entailed efforts
minority, chose not only to remove its parliamen- to gain legitimation through interpretation of
tary complex to a more secure location than archaeological and architectural evidence of the
Colombo, but relocated it, during the mid-1980s, past glories once enacted within present-day
to the site of the Žfteenth-century fortiŽed complex boundaries.13
that had then served as a power base for Sinhalese
control over the whole island – the last time such Neo-Nebuchadnezzar
control would be possible until independence, Žve Perhaps the most audacious example of the archae-
hundred years later (Fig. 3). At the same time, ological version of mediated monuments occurred
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and national identity
Lawrence J. Vale

Figure 3. Sri Lanka

island parliament
(source: New Capital
Project Division,
Urban Development
Authority, Sri Lanka).

during the late 1980s in Iraq, where Saddam Berlin museum. Undaunted by the outcry of archi-
Hussein’s Ba’athist regime realised a twenty-year- tects and archaeologists who had originally resisted
old dream to rebuild Babylon, located an hour’s the project, the regime hired a thousand mostly
drive south of Baghdad (Fig. 4). Saddam and his Sudanese labourers to spend three years building
followers were not deterred by the fact that, 2500 a half-scale replica of the famous Gate together
years after its heyday, the site consisted mostly of with a Žve-hundred-room palace behind it, mostly
rubble or that the bricks of the Ishtar Gate had constructed out of ochre-coloured thermolite
long since been carted off and reconstructed in a blocks, all at a cost estimated as high as US$100
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Figure 4. Babylon,
reconstructed Ishtar
Gate (photograph by
Stuart Franklin).

Figure 5. Saddam
Hussein towering
above a ‘attened’
Ishtar Gate billboard
(photograph by
Stuart Franklin).

million.14 As Iraqi expatriate architect Kanan Makiya

describes it, ‘An image of Babylon which many
people can identify with has Žnally been created
in place of the piles of mud, foundation traces and
stone blocks which was all that was left of the real
thing.’ Just as the original Babylonians had
inscribed bricks with the message commemorating
‘Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon from far sea to
far sea,’ so too the bricklayers of the new regime
duly labelled their handiwork: ‘Built in the era of
the victorious leader Saddam Hussein, the great
defender of Iraq and its glory.’15
Mouayad Said, director of Iraq’s Department of
Antiquities, insisted that the reconstruction was
‘completely scientiŽc work,’ but pointed to the
need to make improvements so that the visitors
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and national identity
Lawrence J. Vale

would no longer be ‘disappointed when they saw ality cult is set in stone.’18 Efforts to reconstruct
Babylon.’16 In the context of present-day political the Tower of Babel yielded little more than a
tensions in the Middle East, renewed celebration stump but, determined to leave his mark on the
of the powerful king who conquered Jerusalem, site, the Iraqi President erected a grand ziggurat-
destroyed the Second Temple, and carried thou- like palace (‘guest house’) sheathed in white marble
sands of Jews into captivity, carried no small signif- atop the man-made ‘Saddam Hill’ overlooking the
icance. ruins.19 Down below, while touring Nebuch-
The celebration of Babylon’s rebirth ofŽcially adnezzar’s own reconstructed palace, one reporter
began in 1987 with establishment of the Babylon recounted how his guide, perhaps inspired by all
International Festival, while Iraq was still at war of the inscriptions on the new bricks, pointed to
with Iran. As Munir Bashir, the festival’s chief the empty platform in the throne room and, with
director, put it, ‘Babylon was the centre of the ‘voice rising in pride,’ intoned: ‘This is where the
world’s civilisation, arts, and culture and it is right leader Saddam Hussein had his throne. This is
that it regain that fame again.’ For Saddam and where Saddam Hussein sat.’ Only when faced with
his followers, the war had been recast as a battle quizzical looks from the tour group did she catch
between the ancient civilisations of Mesopotamia her mistake, correcting herself with a nervous
and Persia, with Babylon rebuilt as ideological laugh: ‘I mean Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar.
armour. Following the UN-brokered truce that Nebuchadnezzar had his throne there.’20
ended the Iran–Iraq War in 1988, the festival This neo-Babylonian presence became but one
sought not only to asset Iraq’s globally signiŽcant aspect of a larger landscape of Saddam, revealin g
ancient heritage but also to revive the country’s the pervasiveness of his personality cult. Iraq’s
decimated tourist industry.17 leader appeared on thousands of prominent bill-
In the 1990s, with the Persian Gulf War and the boards, with giant portraits festooning plazas,
multi-year UN sanctions against Iraq that followed trafŽc circles and government and private buildings
Iraq’s partial defeat, Western press reports about across the country. One reporter describes the
Babylon focused less on its archaeological recon- Baghdad of 1999 as a ‘Saddam theme park,’ with
struction than on its propaganda role in the polit- its skyline dominated by the Saddam International
ical construction of Saddam Hussein. No longer Tower, Žnished in 1995 and built, like many other
viewed as just a curious and controversial tourist structures, to show resistance to economic sanc-
promotion venture, British and American newspa- tions. Beneath this telecommunications tower,
pers now consistently stressed Babylon’s role in which was deliberately scaled to be taller than
making Saddam the self-styled ‘New King of London’s Post OfŽce Tower (‘to show that Britain
Babylon,’ brandishing headlines such as ‘Babylon could not vanquish the Iraqi people’), Saddam
now an ad for Hussein,’ ‘Look Who’s Stealing commissioned yet another walled palace, replete
Nebuchadnezzar’s Thunder,’ and ‘Saddam’s person- with artiŽcial lakes. On the site of the bomb-
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destroyed domestic airport, work is underway on Babylon Rises Again on the Glorious Road of Jihad
the Saddam Hussein Mosque, poised, it is claimed, and Development’. Others visiting ‘New Babylon’
to become the world’s largest. Many new build- came away with grounds for doubt. By the early
ings, echoing the Babylonian precedent, bear 1990s it was apparent that the newly cemented
plaques attesting that they were ‘built in the era oors of the reconstructed palace permitted water
of Saddam Hussein.’ The constant visual reminders from the nearby Euphrates River to seep up through
of Saddam’s presence, intended to instil a sense the remains of the 3000-year-old foundations, caus-
that there could be no viable political alternative , ing enough erosion to suggest that Saddam’s rebuilt
convey a commanding yet fatherly image dressed Babylonian palaces ‘are doomed soon to crumble
to appeal to different constituencies – variously back into the desert.’24 In April 1996, thieves looted
appearing ‘as an Arab sheikh with a white head cuneiform tablets and cylinders from the Babylon
scarf, military hero in green fatigues, chief law-giver Museum, part of a nationwide ‘spectacular and vio-
wearing a black gown, and world statesman in a lent’ pillaging of antiquities for eventual sale abroad.
Western suit.’21 In response, the Iraqi authorities removed nearly all
Dominating the political as well as aesthetic land- statuary and antiquities from the site to Baghdad for
scape, Saddam duly and dually associated himself safekeeping. The few foreign visitors who reported
with Iraq’s past and its future. As a reporter from Babylon in the late 1990s described a ‘forlorn
comments, ‘He is up to date, standing in front of tourist site,’ one with ‘all the atmosphere of a
a futuristic landscape of skyscrapers [and] . . . He is stranded housing project in a state where its only
eternal, as in Babylon, where a billboard has him cash-cow has been slaughtered’; in short, they all
sharing a scene with Nebuchadnezzar near the concurred, the ‘new Babylon seems to have built-in
Tower of Babel.’22 Not content to have Babylon in impermanence.’ 25 More than one journalist was
a single place, the regime replicated the resurrecte d moved to conclude with a quotation from Shelley’s
iconography into roadside evocations of kitsch Ozymandias, whose ancient boasts about triumphal
connectivity, with Saddam himself towering above works were belied by ‘vast and trunkless legs of
a attened Ishtar billboard23 (Fig. 5). If Mao inspired stone.’
Warhol, then Saddam seemed to have been The impulse to tie national, sub-national, and per-
reading too much Venturi. sonal identity to a people’s deep historic past
Following the Persian Gulf War, the annual through architecture and urbanism is entirely under-
Babylon International Festival continued, serving as standable, and more powerful than ever due to the
a setting to demonstrate signs of ‘international’ sup- power of the media to replicate and disseminate
port for Saddam’s regime, while continuing to sup- images of the result. In Iraq, as elsewhere, it is impor-
press present difŽculties by emphasising its ‘great tant to emphasise that such images may be con-
cultural heritage.’ In 1996, the festival’s ofŽcial slo- structed and manipulated by sceptics as well as by
gan was ‘From Nebuchadnezzar to Saddam Hussein, supporters.
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Figure 6. Plan of is Great Zimbabwe, the impressive masonry remains

Great Zimbabwe of a palace complex and city, believed to have been
(source: Peter home to more than 10 000 people in the fourteenth
Garlake, Great
century, prior to its Žfteenth-century decline (Fig. 7).
Zimbabwe Described
Unwilling to believe the hard truth that Great
and Explained ).
Zimbabwe had actually been built by Africans,
European colonisers long attributed it to outsiders,
if they bothered to discuss it at all (Fig. 8).
In 1891, English author/explorer J. Theodore Bent
undertook the Žrst systematic investigation of
Great Zimbabwe, Žnanced by the Royal
Geographical Society, the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, and Rhodes’ British South
Africa Company. Bent dismissed the notion that
local Africans could have built such structures, since
it was ‘a well accepted fact that the negroid brain
could never be capable of taking the initiative in
work of such intricate nature’. If Africans had been
involved in constructing Great Zimbabwe, he
concluded, they would have to have done so ‘as
the slaves of a race of higher cultivation’. Instead,
he surmised, the structures were built by unnamed
‘ancients’ who temporarily descended from some-
Great Zimbabwe where in the Middle East. He concluded that the
No country illustrates the power of mediated built imposing structures were meant to shield a
heritage any better than Zimbabwe, probably the ‘civilised race’ which had come to search for
only nation state ever named after a work of archi- mineral wealth in ‘the midst of an enemy’s country,’
tecture. There could be no question that the name a clearly self-serving precursor for his own partici-
‘Rhodesia’ was going to remain after independence pation in a colonialist enterprise.26
in 1980, given that the designation not only had Rhodes next commissioned Alexander Wilmot –
been imposed by former colonisers but even explic- then the leading author of history textbooks for
itly honoured Cecil Rhodes himself. The new nation South Africa’s schools – to assess the existing
instead derived its name from the Shona phrase European archival sources, seeking out the earliest
dzimba dza mabwe, meaning ‘houses of stone’ (Fig. descriptions of Great Zimbabwe. Wilmot wholly
6). By far the most famous example of these places concurred with Bent’s line of argument, adding that
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Figure 7. Great
Zimbabwe – houses
of stone (photograph
by the author).

the power of the Great Zimbabwe civilisation had challenged both the idea that the ruins were ancient
waned because of unfortunate interbreeding with and the notion that they were built by non-Africans.
the native population. Once again, he sought to In turn, such conclusions – proffered by ‘outsiders’
interpret the settlement and development of the unfamiliar with local Africans – were frequently
site as an ancient analogy to the resource-seekin g ridiculed or dismissed by white settlers. By the late
efforts of the present British mission. Subsequent 1920s, professional archaeologists had gained
accounts of Great Zimbabwe stressed the need of greater credibility for claims of African origin for the
the ancients to subjugate unruly African natives, site, accomplished in part by casting the technical
providing yet another cautionary tale for the travails quality of the stonework in highly derogatory terms,
of colonisation.27 ‘the product of an infantile mind, a pre-logical
In the early twentieth century, however, the Žrst mind’. They also described a degenerative trend in
trained archaeologists visited Great Zimbabwe and construction over time, and concluded that the
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Mediated monuments
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Lawrence J. Vale

descendants of the builders no longer resided in the With independence, the archaeological exegesis
area. 28 As sociologist of science Henrika Kuklick of Great Zimbabwe took yet another important
observes, ‘the structures were a lesson writ in stone turn. As the guidebook available at the site explains
for Africans and colonialists alike:’ to Africans, they it, ‘One of the most striking features of the new
served as a reminder of past leadership skills and state of Zimbabwe is the depth of its historical
model for emulation; to colonialists, ‘they were a roots. It is rare in Africa to be able to trace a
reminder of the mission that justiŽed their rule – people’s history back for many centuries, yet the
the uplift of the country’s indigenous peoples’.29 past of Zimbabwe can be followed, through both
Even as the contestation over origins continued traditions and documents, as a continuous story
to simmer – and perhaps because of it – Great for Žve centuries’. Moreover, the guide claims, this
Zimbabwe gained fame as a tourist site for those ‘saga of one people’s development . . . extends
seeking to ponder ‘The Riddle of Rhodesia’ or even further, into remote prehistory’. Prime Minister
‘Rhodesia’s Mystery’. In the years following the Robert Mugabe was only too pleased to claim a
white regime’s Unilateral Declaration of direct family lineage to another ‘Mugabe’ who
Independence in 1965, Great Zimbabwe became once ruled the area of Great Zimbabwe, and conve-
profoundly re-politicised and, in the early 1970s, niently chose to ignore the fact that his alleged
state employees at the site were told they would ancestors, whatever their powers, Žrst came to
be Žred if they credited ‘black people’ with the Great Zimbabwe more than two hundred years
monuments. In large part, the controversy burst after the city’s collapse. As the country’s new leader
forth because African nationalists had begun to put it in an independence-eve address to the
champion Great Zimbabwe as a highly useful nascent nation, ‘Independence will bestow on us
cornerstone for interpreting their people’s past. . . . a new future and perspective and, indeed, a
Moreover, as further archaeological research found new history and a new past’ (Fig. 9).
evidence of progressive cultural sophistication Great Zimbabwe stands as the national symbol of
rather than degeneration, and additional evidence that new past. As Zimbabwean historian Benedict
for a continuity of Shona occupation, the ruins Mtshali puts it, the ruins demonstrate that ‘the
could not avoid becoming a touchstone for heated African had a civilisation that was not the white
political argument.30 If the ruins could be shown man’s gift’.31 After independence, the majority of
to be both of African origin and of high quality, the annual visitors to the site were Zimbabweans,
two basic types of old arguments marshalled by many of them schoolchildren. Although the site is
white supremacists collapsed. In the context of an quite isolated, visitor numbers reached 100 000
independence struggle and contested national annually by the late 1990s, spurred by construction
identity, Great Zimbabwe – or more precisely the of a new stone hotel – The Lodge of the Ancient
interpretative spin put upon it – was a microcosm City – based on motifs found in the ruins, and con-
of larger political challenges. structed with minimal modern machinery. Others
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The Journal
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Figure 8. Great
Zimbabwe – detail
(photograph by the
author).

Figure 9. Great
Zimbabwe – book
jacket (Peter Garlake,
Great Zimbabwe
Described and
Explained ).

have proposed a bigger airport at nearby Masvingo, ethnic group, the government developed a recon-
casinos, and even chair lifts over the ruins – all part structed nineteenth century Shona Village as a ‘liv-
of what one journalist aptly termed ‘the marketing ing museum’ next to the ruins.34 National identity,
of an ancient capital’s mysteries’.32 The image-build- it is evident, depended not only on international
ing operates internationally, as well. In April 1999, recognition but on sub-national self-promotion,
for example, the government of Zimbabwe sent a each intended to counter the false impressions dis-
‘working model’ of the ‘Great Zimbabwe Stone seminated by a century of colonialist media. As the
Kingdom’ to Houston, Texas, where it could be seen introduction to a Great Zimbabwe guidebook –
by participants at the ‘Attracting Capital to Africa’ written by the Minister of Home Affairs – makes
summit.33 clear: ‘In a very real way this precious cornerstone
Back at home, to make clear the link between of our culture was taken away from us with our
the deep past and the country’s current dominant country by the colonialists. Drained of life, it
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Mediated monuments
and national identity
Lawrence J. Vale

became an object for foreign tourists, and the sub- today seems to be culturally secure enough to
ject of absurd theories of every sort, with a single abandon mediated monuments.
aim in common, to rob us of our past and our Even England, riding high on a crest of renewed
pride’. The Minister accused the previous regime of economic centrality and cultural inuence but
Ian Smith of interfering with archaeological research threatened with the collapse of Great Britain, has
and, indeed, the guidebook’s author, white symbolised London’s gains through self-conscious
Zimbabwean architect/archaeologist Peter Garlake monuments from the Millennium Dome on down,
quit his post as the Senior Inspector of Monuments globally publicised. Could these be the necessary
of Southern Rhodesia in 1970 when the ruling English parallels to the new parliaments in Scotland
Rhodesian Front regime instructed that ‘no ofŽcial and Wales?
publications may state unequivocally that Great Too often, we tend to see the role of the built
Zimbabwe was an African creation’. A decade later, environment in the production of legitimacy merely
Garlake returned to write the scrupulously-detailed in terms of individual buildings. Such objects
post-independence guidebook, commenting that may indeed become the focus for sustained
‘Great Zimbabwe has always excited a stream of reection on a real or imagined past or may
racist writing intent on proving that the city and participate in a newly invented heritage, but
architecture were not Zimbabwean creations’. To buildings need to be seen in their true double con-
document this, he reluctantly included a list of such text – as pieces of cities and as sources of media
works on the Žnal page of his guide, ending with representations. In many of the cases just discussed,
a caveat: ‘For those with strong stomachs, they all the intended nationalism, sub-nationalism, interna-
provide insights into the way prejudice hovers and tionalism and personalism are encoded into the
seeks to justify itself on the fringes of science’.35 urban design, rather than evident in the architec-
ture. Even when historical references in architecture
Conclusion: the power of mediated urban are limited, hybridised, or highly abstracted, the
design power of monuments is conveyed by their larger
What do such extreme instances of architectural setting. Mediated monuments form both new (or
prejudice have to say to other, more judicious, renewed) physical centres and, like the organisa-
regimes? What about places that never were tions that produce them, remain dependent on
subjected to colonial rule (and, indeed, places that repeated demonstration of this centrality.
once practised it or continue to do so)? Aren’t the
excesses of Mao, Stalin and the others merely Notes and references
outlandish exceptions? In short, what about those 1. M. Edelman, From Art to Politics: How Artistic
places where national identity and national heri- Creations Shape Political Conceptions (Chicago,
tage are presumably more long-standing, less- University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 76.
contested? The short answer is that no country 2. Ibid., p. 83.
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3. Wu Hung. ‘Tiananmen Square: A political history 13. For a discussion of the broader relationship between
of monuments,’ Representations, 35 (1991), pp. archaeology and nationalism, see P.L. Kohl,
84–117. ‘Nationalism and archaeology: On the constructions
4. K. Berton, Moscow: An Architectural History (New of nations and the reconstructions of the remote
York, St. Martin’s press, 1977), pp. 197, 202, 239. past,’ Annual Review of Anthropology 27 (1998), pp.
5. Quoted in S. Kostof, ‘The Emperor and the Duce: The 223–46.
planning of Piazzale Augusto Imperatore in Rome’ in 14. ‘Babylonian culture lives again: Iraq opens festival
H. Millon and L. Nochlin (eds), Art and Architecture Friday at rebuilt “cradle of civilisation”,’ St. Louis
in Service of Politics (Cambridge, MIT Press, 1978), Post-Dispatch, 18 September 1989, p. 4A.
p. 284. 15. S. al–Khalil [alias Kanan Makiya], The Monument: Art,
6. For fuller discussion of Mussolini’s architectural and Vulgarity, and Responsibility in Iraq (Berkeley,
urbanistic efforts see, among many other sources, S. University of California Press, 1991), pp. 70–1.
Kostof, The Third Rome: TrafŽc and Glory (Berkeley, 16. Mouayad Said, quoted in G.D. Moffett III, ‘Iraq recon-
Cal. University Art Museum, 1973); D. Ghirardo, structs ancient Babylon,’ The Christian Science
‘Italian architects and Fascist politics: An evaluation Monitor, (6 February 1990), p. 17.
of the rationalist’s role in regime building,’ Journal of 17. ‘Babylonian culture lives again: Iraq opens festival
the Society of Architectural Historians, 39 (1980), pp. Friday at rebuilt “cradle of civilisation”,’ St. Louis
109–127; and D.P. Doordan, ‘The political content in Post-Dispatch, op. cit.
Italian architecture during the Fascist era,’ Art Journal, 18. D. Williams, ‘The New King of Babylon,’ Los Angeles
43, 2 (Summer 1983), pp. 121–31. Times, 6 September 1990, p. A7; J.R. Payton,
7. A. Speer, Inside the Third Reich, trans. Richard and ‘Babylon now an ad for Hussein,’ St. Petersburg
Clara Winston (New York, Macmillan, 1970), pp. (Florida) Times, 5 September 1990; D. Jehl, ‘Look
152–54. See also S. Helmer, Hitler’s Berlin: The Speer Who’s Stealing Nebuchadnezzar’s Thunder,’ New York
Plans for Reshaping the Central City (Ann Arbor, UMI Times, 2 June 1997, p. A4; P. Sherwell, ‘Saddam’s
Research Press, 1985), pp. 27–48. personality cult is set in stone,’ Daily Telegraph, 6
8. A. Speer, ibid., pp. 55, 103, 156. The new palace March 1999, p. 17.
was to have encompassed 22 million square feet in 19. D. Jehl, ibid., A4; ‘Saddam does battle with
the middle of Berlin, and diplomats would have had Nebuchadnezzar,’ The Guardian, 4 January 1999, p.
to hike a half a mile within it in order to meet with 11.
Hitler. 20. Williams, op. cit., p. A7.
9. Ibid., p. 56. 21. Sherwell, op. cit., p. 17; A. La Guardia, ‘Saddam
10. See L. J. Vale, Architecture, Power, and National builds his own monuments,’ Daily Telegraph, 20
Identity (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1992), October 1995, p. 24.
especially chapter 2. 22. Williams, op cit., p. A7.
11. Cesar Pelli, quoted in Architecture (September 1994), 23. S. al–Khalil, op. cit., pp. 70–1.
p. 110. 24. L. Gay, ‘Saddam’s Babylonian palaces doomed to fall
12. For a longer discussion of Sri Lanka’s island parlia- back into ruin,’ The Ottawa Citizen, 11 September
ment, see Vale, op. cit., chapter 7. 1993, p. J2.
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Mediated monuments
and national identity
Lawrence J. Vale

25. ‘Saddam does battle with Nebuchadnezzar, op. cit.;’ ruins of Great Zimbabwe National Monument,’ Los
B. Demick, ‘Robbing the cradle of civilisation,’ Angeles Times, 18 March 1990, p. A2.
Toronto Star, 29 March 1998, p. A2. 32. D.G. McNeil Jr., ‘Great Zimbabwe journal: The
26. H. Kuklick, ‘Contested monuments: The politics of marketing of an ancient capital’s mysteries,’ New York
archeology in Southern Africa’ in G.W. Stocking, (ed), Times, 18 January 1997, p.4.
Colonial Situations: Essays on the Contextualization 33. R. Stanton, ‘Festival to focus on culture, history of
of Ethnographic Knowledge, History of Anthropology southern Africa,’ The Houston Chronicle, 5 April
Volume 7 (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1999, p. A20.
1991), pp. 139–40; J. Theodore Bent quoted p. 140. 34. N. Hammond, ‘Zimbabwe puts its heritage on show,’
See also D. Beach, ‘Cognitive archaeology and imag- The Times [London], 7 October 1992; J. Raath, ‘The
inary history at Great Zimbabwe,’ Current stone metropolis,’ The Times [London], 20 February
Anthropology 39, no. 1 (1998), pp. 47–72. 1999.
27. H. Kuklick, ibid., pp. 140–3. 35. P. Garlake, Great Zimbabwe Described and Explained,
28. ibid., pp. 150–5; Gertrude Caton-Thompson (1929), with an Introduction by the Minister of Home Affairs
quoted p. 153. Dr Herbert Ushewokunze (Harare, Zimbabwe
29. ibid., pp. 155–6. Publishing House, 1982), pp. 4–5, 7, 11–17, 19,
30. ibid., pp. 158–62. 61–4. Garlake is considered the leading archaeolog-
31. Benedict Mtshali, quoted in N. Henry, ‘Pride inhabits ical authority on the ruins.