ABSTRACT

Taken together and seen in relation to the history of designed capitals, the capitol complexes in Papua New Guinea, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh constitute a broad array of attempts to symbolize political power and design national identity. If the range of conceivable design approaches is envisioned as a spectrum encompassing everything from the most willfully international to the most obstinately local, then all four capitol designs fall somewhere in the middle. The ultrainternationalist position may be an invisible part of this spectrum. A work that is in every respect international is a logical impossibility to design because no building actually constructed can avoid being a product of its place and its producers. Even the most positive interpretation of an internationalist stance does not negate the power of local construction labor, local climate, and local culture to transform both the appearance and the meanings of a building even in a single, globally interconnected economy.