In 1924, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe stated that architecture “is the will of an epoch translated into space.” Buildings are not only works of art, but also an expression of the political, cultural, and social forces of their time. Since ancient times, public buildings have embodied the identity of an empire or country, symbolized values and ambitions, and supported the “national narrative.” They transmit messages and convey emotions. Architecture is thus an important, albeit often overlooked, component of a country's soft power. But is this still relevant in times of escalating rivalries between major powers? Yes, most definitely. Soft power plays a significant role, especially because of the new systemic competition between liberal democracies and autocracies.
Memories of the Cold War are being rekindled: an era when architectural objects became the ideological battleground of the East-West confrontation. “Competition between the two systems spurred construction in both East and West,” Germany’s Tagesschau news program noted on the 60th anniversary of the construction of East Berlin’s TV Tower. Architectural landmarks of that era, manifestations in stone of the power of real undeniable socialism or glass and steel affirmations of the commitment to democracy and the market economy, still shape the face of cities today. These include the Palace of Culture and Science in Warsaw, built between 1952 and 1955 on behalf of Soviet leader Josef Stalin, and the Berlin Congress Hall (now the “House of World Cultures”), which was built in 1957 as part of the US presence at the Interbau International Building Exhibition.
According to US political scientists Simon Curtis and Ian Klaus, there is a fundamental connection between infrastructure, urban—and thus architectural—form, and the type of international order established by major powers. This article explores how architecture is still being used for (geo)political purposes today.
Beijing’s “Palace Diplomacy”
Since 2012, the monumental headquarters of the African Union (AU), consisting of a futuristic-looking office tower almost 100 meters high and a conference center for the annual AU summits, has towered over the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. Particularly noteworthy is that the building complex was financed and built almost exclusively by the People’s Republic of China.
The AU headquarters joins a long list of often lavishly designed government and parliamentary buildings in African countries, the construction of which have been partially or fully financed by Beijing. Recent examples include the Ghanaian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the new headquarters of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja. On the face of it, China is, in this way, contributing to the expansion of African infrastructure as part of its multi-billion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative and presenting itself as a powerful partner for development and modernization.
But with its “palace diplomacy,” Beijing is also pursuing tangible geopolitical interests. African countries are simultaneously suppliers of raw materials, markets, and political partners for China. They are therefore of particular strategic importance. In addition to the hoped-for image boost, prestigious architectural projects on the African continent are intended to literally cement China’s influence in the respective countries. Beijing’s willingness to finance even parliament buildings—places of democratic decision-making that have little to do with the Chinese one-party system—clearly demonstrates the pragmatic nature of its Africa policy. As Lindsey McKhan shows in her article “Constructing Strategic Partnerships: China’s Parliament Building Projects in Lesotho and Zimbabwe,” the focus is not on ideological congruence, but on securing Chinese interests in the long term. By expanding its presence in Africa, China is also underpinning its claim to exert global influence as a world power.
Even though Beijing wants its construction projects to be seen as tangible manifestations of Chinese-African partnership, buildings “courtesy of China” are often met with criticism. African voices in particular see the act of donation as reinforcing the material imbalance between donor and recipient. In addition, the structures erected by an external power evoke memories of the colonial era, especially as locals are only minimally involved in planning, implementation, and maintenance.
Putin’s Potemkin Village
The fact that architecture can become a tool in geopolitical rivalries is evident not only in the form of “architectural gifts,” but also—particularly drastically—in the context of war and occupation. Russia's “reconstruction” of the annexed city of Mariupol reveals in an oppressive way how the architectural transformation and redesign of a city can be used to serve the political and cultural goals of the occupying power.
Shortly after the systematic destruction and conquest of this city on the northern shore of the Sea of Azov, which is strategically important for Russia, Moscow presented a “master plan” for the reconstruction of Mariupol. It aimed to erase the city’s Ukrainian character in terms of urban development and create a Russified Mariupol. Much of the existing building stock was demolished. Within a very short time and with the use of massive financial resources, new apartment blocks and public buildings were already being built from scratch, including those of the Nevsky residential district, to which Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a media-friendly visit in March 2023.
The occupiers are imposing a new face on the city, thereby making their claim to power visible. The construction of a positive image “Russia not only destroys, it also builds” may also be part of Russia's calculations, but this is unlikely to resonate with the Ukrainian population still in Mariupol. On the contrary, Ukrainian residents of the city point out that reconstruction beyond the cosmetic is progressing extremely slowly. The fact that these lucrative reconstruction projects—from which Russian companies in particular are benefiting—appear to be based on the principle of “speed rather than quality” prompted the Financial Times to describe Mariupol as “Russia’s new Potemkin village.”
Ukrainian memorial sites, including the monument to the victims of the Holodomor—the state-induced famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed millions—and political repression, have been dismantled by the Russian occupiers. Instead, the occupying power intends to have Russian monuments erected. The construction of the “Liberator of Donbass” monument, a 50-meter-high anchor-shaped sculpture bearing the Russian national coat of arms, which began in Mariupol in January 2025, clearly shows how Russia’s role as the supposed “liberator” is being glorified and the Ukrainian narrative systematically suppressed. The bombed-out theater, whose ruins (and possibly the remains of civilians killed there) are shielded from the view of onlookers by gigantic scaffolding, is to be completely rebuilt, thereby losing its character as a memorial. Russia's construction measures also serve to erase from the cityscape, once and for all, the traces of the war crimes committed.
New Powers, New Buildings
Russia’s “reconstruction” in Mariupol clearly shows how architecture can be used to serve imperial occupation policies. But architectural projects can also achieve the opposite: They can be manifestos of growing self-confidence, with which emerging states express their ambitions. At the end of the 1950s, with the construction of the new Brazilian capital, Brasília, Oscar Niemeyer realized his vision of a city that would stand for independence, modernity, and equality as a counterpoint to colonial Rio de Janeiro. With its monumental buildings, futuristic forms and airplane-shaped layout, the city expressed the new self-confidence of an emerging Brazil. Even though Niemeyer admitted in retrospect that Brasília was only able to fulfill its lofty goals to a very limited extent, he nevertheless created a blueprint for ambitious architectural projects that reflect the aspirations of the countries of the Global South.
Now, at a time when the political and economic influence of the emerging middle powers of the Global South is growing, large-scale urban development projects are experiencing a renaissance, for example in Egypt with New Cairo or in Nigeria with Eko Atlantic City. However, the construction of Neom’s The Line in Saudi Arabia, a gigantic 170 kilometer “linear settlement” 500 meters high, was recently halted.
In Indonesia, the government of former President Joko Widodo started work on plans to move the seat of government from the densely populated and sinking metropolis of Jakarta to a new capital, and was given the green light for one of the largest construction projects in the Global South. In 2022, construction work began on the new capital, Nusantara, located in the east of the island of Borneo. As the world's first climate-neutral capital, Nusantara is intended to symbolize modernity.
With monumental administrative buildings and a presidential palace modeled on the silhouette of the mythological Garuda eagle, the new city stands for the unity of the island nation and at the same time expresses Indonesia's self-image as an influential regional power in Southeast Asia. However, it seems unlikely that Nusantara will actually replace Jakarta in the near future. This is because Widodo's successor, Prabowo, has drastically reduced the funds available for the expansion of Nusantara (the total cost is estimated at $32 billion). Without the political will to complete the project and significant investment from international investors, the prestige project could end up as a “white elephant” in the jungle of Borneo.
Transparency and Defensibility
In liberal democracies, architecture often serves as a backdrop against which the demands for transparency, citizen participation, and openness in pluralistic societies are manifested. Within the context of decades of debate about the characteristics of “democratic architecture,” German political scientist Jan-Werner Müller poses the crucial question in an article for The Architectural Review in May 2024: “Show me what democracy looks like.”
The Reichstag building, which Norman Foster renovated and fitted with a glass dome before it became the seat of the German Bundestag in 1999, is considered a prime example of a building that embodies the values of liberal democracy. From the glass dome, citizens can literally look over the shoulders of their elected representatives. But the architectural history of the renovated Reichstag building also shows how the optimism of the 1990s—buoyed by the West's victory in the Cold War and an unshakeable belief in liberal democracy—has since given way to an awareness of the need to defend oneself against internal and external adversaries.
This is symbolized by the so-called Aha-Graben, a moat designed to protect the German parliament building without destroying the openness and accessibility of the area. Only if this balancing act succeeds will the architecture of the Reichstag become a symbol not of a political system under siege, but of a democracy that is both defensible and open.
This ambivalence is evident not only in national symbolic buildings such as the Reichstag, but also in an international context, for example in the NATO headquarters in Brussels, which opened in 2017. With its massive steel and glass elements, the 250,000-square-meter command center is intended to represent the alliance's strength, transparency, and cohesion. However, given the signs of disintegration within the alliance and growing external threats, it remains to be seen whether the NATO headquarters will become a structural relic of a broken transatlantic West or an architectural symbol of a consolidated Western alliance.
The position of the United States under the current administration is particularly decisive in this regard. The architectural style favored by US President Donald Trump, a former real estate magnate, emphasizes pomp and monumentality, reminiscent of the architectural forms of expression used by autocratic systems.
Under Trump's leadership, the White House—once conceived as a Republican counterpoint to the opulent government headquarters in the monarchies of the Old World—is to be expanded to include an opulent ballroom à la Versailles. To “remake the White House in his own image,” as the BBC put it, Trump even went so far as to demolish the building’s historic East Wing. What’s more, under the slogan “Make Federal Architecture Beautiful Again,” Trump has issued a decree stipulating that federal buildings in Washington must now be built exclusively in the classical style. Modern architectural styles are no longer to be used. Architectural diversity is being replaced by uniform traditionalism.
The buildings discussed reveal the identity crisis facing the West, caught between transparency and defensibility, between liberal democratic tradition and new forms of populist authoritarian politics. But times of crisis often unleash creative potential. Self-confident and adaptable democracies will continue to find new forms of expression for their values in the future—not least in the form of architectural projects.—translated from the German by Kate Brown
Nora Müller heads the International Politics division and the Berlin office of the Körber Foundation.
