Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Citizenship and the Good Life
- 2 Spaces of the Prudent Self
- 3 The Biopolitics of Sexuality and the Hypothesis of an Erotic Art: Foucault and Psychoanalysis
- 4 Elective Spaces: Creating Space to Care
- 5 Interpreting Dao (道) between ‘Way-making’ and ‘Be-wëgen’
- 6 Constructing Each Other: Contemporary Travel of Urban-Design Ideas between China and the West
- 7 A Tale of Two Courts: The Interactions of the Dutch and Chinese Political Elites with their Cities
- 8 Urban Acupuncture: Care and Ideology in the Writing of the City in Eleventh-Century China
- 9 The Value and Meaning of Temporality and its Relationship to Identity in Kunming City, China
- 10 Junzi (君子), the Confucian Concept of the ‘Gentleman’, and its Influence on South Korean Land-Use Planning
- 11 Home Within Movement: The Japanese Concept of Ma (間): Sensing Space-time Intensity in Aesthetics of Movement
- 12 The Concept of ‘Home’: The Javanese Creative Interpretation of Omah Bhetari Sri: A Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity
- Afterword
- Index
- Publications / Asian Cities
7 - A Tale of Two Courts: The Interactions of the Dutch and Chinese Political Elites with their Cities
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 February 2021
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures and Tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Citizenship and the Good Life
- 2 Spaces of the Prudent Self
- 3 The Biopolitics of Sexuality and the Hypothesis of an Erotic Art: Foucault and Psychoanalysis
- 4 Elective Spaces: Creating Space to Care
- 5 Interpreting Dao (道) between ‘Way-making’ and ‘Be-wëgen’
- 6 Constructing Each Other: Contemporary Travel of Urban-Design Ideas between China and the West
- 7 A Tale of Two Courts: The Interactions of the Dutch and Chinese Political Elites with their Cities
- 8 Urban Acupuncture: Care and Ideology in the Writing of the City in Eleventh-Century China
- 9 The Value and Meaning of Temporality and its Relationship to Identity in Kunming City, China
- 10 Junzi (君子), the Confucian Concept of the ‘Gentleman’, and its Influence on South Korean Land-Use Planning
- 11 Home Within Movement: The Japanese Concept of Ma (間): Sensing Space-time Intensity in Aesthetics of Movement
- 12 The Concept of ‘Home’: The Javanese Creative Interpretation of Omah Bhetari Sri: A Dialogue between Tradition and Modernity
- Afterword
- Index
- Publications / Asian Cities
Summary
Abstract
Political centres are the manifestation of a nation: political elites express the values of a culture through the architecture of their cities’ political zones. But are these constructed zones transparent or opaque? Planned or haphazard? Conforming or transforming? Protective or exposed? ‘The placement of parliament buildings is an exercise in political power, a spatial declaration of political control’ (Vale 2008: 10). Vale illustrates the historical construction of political cities and how they either deliberately or subconsciously project an image of their approbation to rule through the architecture and placement of government buildings. Providing a comparative study of the central government complexes in a Western and an Eastern city, I attempt to augment our knowledge of cities through the observation of city dwellers in their own habitat, specifically the political elite. Bringing together architectural, cultural, and political history, this cross-disciplinary approach deepens our awareness of the complexities of the city construct and illuminates the collective emotional roots of societies through a specific, dominant group and how they exploit their habitats within their respective cities: the Binnenhof in The Hague, The Netherlands and Zhongnanhai in Beijing, China.
Keywords: political elites, cities, space, Binnenhof (The Hague), Zhongnanhai (Beijing)
Introduction
‘There is no doubt in my mind that the city is in addition to everything else an expression of the culture of the people who produced it, an extension that performs many complex, interrelated functions, some of which we are not even aware of’ (Hall 1982) Since Edward T. Hall first made this statement in 1966, a wealth of knowledge has been accumulated about cities and their cultural heritage—but many cultural complexities still remain hidden, particularly as we identify with the city through the prism of subjective perceptions and cultural bias.
By choosing one defined group, the political elite, who have high stakes in the construction of their cities and embody in one form or another the societies they represent, I hope to shed some light on how this group influences the shaping of their physical environment and, as a consequence, their cities. This chapter is an observation of two political elites in their own environments, encapsulated within their own particular places and historical time frames, not a comparative approach toward two cities over time.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ancient and Modern Practices of Citizenship in Asia and the WestCare of the Self, pp. 141 - 170Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2018