ABSTRACT
In the now classic “The City in History”, Lewis Mumford describes the monumental architecture of the citadels of ancient cities. As an expression of the ruler’s power, which almost equalled that of the ‘mighty god’, the purpose of monumental architecture exhibited through ‘costly building materials and all of the resources of art’ was twofold: To ‘produce respectful terror’ and allow residents to partake in the divine personality that was manifested in the institution of kingship. This chapter uses Mumford’s discussion of monumental architecture as an experimental heuristic for thinking about global urbanism. Staying with Mumford’s discussion of monumental architecture, one might speculate that its imaginative potentials derived not only from the ‘respectful terror’ that was evoked from the divine-like aesthetics of the physical buildings and monuments. If monumental urbanism cannot be properly gauged by way of legible scales, its social, economic and political effects can, nevertheless, be determined with relative ease.
