ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the genesis of the contemporary designed capital lies in a much earlier era, as early, in fact, as the days of those momentous Greeks. In both Chandigarh and Brasilia, the acropolitan origins of the capitol complex re-emerge. The design of Chandigarh, though only a provincial Indian capital, was a noteworthy attempt to use modern architecture and urbanism to create a capital that symbolized progress and conveyed national identity in a post-colonial context. Brasilia, equally notable, constitutes the first time that the abstraction and the social agenda of modernism were applied to the national capital of a major country. As at Chandigarh, the very openness of the shadeless plaza is a form of political closure. Whatever the egalitarian tenets of its architects and planners, the economic and political realities of this iconically modern capital serve only to recapitulate an ancient theme: distancing the masses from the seat of courtly power.
