ATLANTIS MAGAZINE FOR URBANISM & LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
#28.2 December 2017
ACTION • REACTION
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BLUEPRINTS FOR A NEW CAPITAL The spatial politics of authoritarian cartographies
by
Selina Abraham MSc Urbanism TU Delft
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In 1327, Ghiyath-ud-din Muhammad Shah II, the then Sultan of the Tughlaq Dynasty ambitiously decided that it would be best for military strategy to shift the capital and its entire population from Delhi to Devagiri in the Deccan. Delhi due to its strategic location was subject to repeated Mongol attacks, moving to the Deccan would allow the Sultan to strengthen his court, ease collection of taxes, and consolidate southern parts of the Indian peninsular with the Mongol invaders too far to attack (Venkatesh, 2017). The city was rechristened as ‘Daulatabad’ and its new status as imperial capital meant that the city was subject to the latest town planning model of the period [Image 1]. A new city was laid out to absorb the court subjects and the citizens of Delhi with different well-marked and self-sufficient wards for different classes, massive ramparts, and an elaborate drainage system (Mate, 1983). But the shift resulted in the death of many of his subjects, who after a long journey found the region dry and arid. Additionally, the northern regions weakened considerably forcing the Sultan to grudgingly shift the capital and its population back after a mere three years. Such a drastic authoritarian move to shift a capital city as a means for nation and state building is unusual but not uncommon. It is often a symptom of authoritarian regimes or pseudo-democratic conditions. More recent examples can be found in various countries in Latin America, Africa, and USSR in the 1950s to the 1990s (Schatz, 2004). This article briefly looks at various countries within the issue’s time-zones and the motivation of its elite to undertake this expensive and risky strategy with a glimpse at the outcomes.
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The General’s urban planner – Islamabad, Pakistan In 1958, General Ayub Khan overthrew Pakistan’s democratic government and imposed martial law. In 1960, the General made a political decision to move the national capital from Karachi in the south to Islamabad, close to the existing city of Rawalpindi. The move has not adjusted well with many, some speculate that General (of mixed Punjabi-Pashtun lineage) did not want Karachi as a capital because Punjabis were a minority and the city was filled with Indian migrants known as the Mohajirs. In contrast, Islamabad was closer to his home village and closer to Kashmir, the vulnerable Indian state with political instability (Khan, 2010). Official reasons cited for the location are network connections (existing Grand Trunk Road and the United Nations Trans-Asian highway) and topographical conditions. Additionally, Islamabad is in close proximity to Rawalpindi, an existing urban area that contributed to the development of Islamabad by providing access to an existing transportation network and supplying labour for the city’s construction.
Greek architect-planner Constantinos A. Doxiadis designed the Masterplan for Islamabad [Image 2] on the principles of ‘dynametropolis’ which consisted of the cities – Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and a National Park. Like many modernist planners, Doxiadis aligned himself to the closest authoritarian power, either Left or Right, that could implement total planning and development programmes at a massive scale. The city was a means to isolate the bureaucracy from the cultural and social activities of a regular city. For Doxiadis, this isolation was a means to control the city form and for the military junta it was a means to control the country. Despite his modernist background, Doxiadis in line with his science of Ekistics believed in understanding of local environmental and physical conditions while planning. However, he did little to comprehend the socio-cultural dimensions of the city. The simplifying and external ordering of space could not grasp the homogenous sociality of Rawalpindi’s mohallas. Doxiadis abhorred by the organic development of Rawalpindi and its undiscernible structure, led him to isolate it in the planning of Islamabad. It was separated by a green belt [Image 3],
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creating a colonial-like division between the rulers and the ruled (Hull, 2009). Furthermore, such planning institutions often devise plans to recast the entire urban social order but underestimate the cost of such an undertaking. And these ambitious plans are never fully realised (Scott, 2008). Doxiadis’ neighbourhood units designed for the inter-mixing of various income levels [Image 4] were never fully realised. The incomplete implementation is at odds with the planner’s intentions and the social-cultural fabric of Pakistan. In 2015, 65 years after its conception, Islamabad had yet to reach Doxiadis’ estimation of 2.5 million population. But, the topdown planning is still considered a success by many. Islamabad is seen as one of Pakistan’s most livable cities, though its Greco-Mediterranean and authoritarian origins make it sit uncomfortably within the Pakistani context. 1. An artist’s impression of the fort and town of Daulatabad. Source - (Mate, 1983) 2.Islamabad – Masterplan by Constantinos Doxiadis. Source – Constantinos and Emma Doxiadis Foundation.
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A dictator’s urban manifesto – Astana, Kazakhstan
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Kazakhstan moved its capital from Almaty to Astana in 1997. Kazakhstan faced many nation-building challenges in the early 1990s, and the relocation of the capital was to address these issues. A few official reasons were cited mainly the geographic limitations of Almaty. It was located on a heavy seismic activity zone and the Zailiiskii Alatau mountains prevented urban expansion to the south and the east. The mountains also contributed to air pollution by trapping airborne contaminants within the city extents. Also, its proximity to the Chinese border made it politically unfavourable (Schatz, 2004). The administrative visionary behind Astana is the country’s first and only president Nursultan Nazarbayev. The state officials have consciously adopted for economic development over democracy. The shifting of the capital allowed Nazarbayev to not only marginalize bureaucratic opposition who resisted reforms but also permitted him to push economic reform. Old patronage systems were replaced with the new patrons of Kazakhstan’s emerging oil and mineral industries. The result is a city filled with flashy starchitect buildings all competing for attention [Image 5]. Only few of these building have been designed pragmatically and rumours claim rapidly constructed building have resulted in shoddy workmanship (Schatz, 2004). The city is riddled with the President’s urban showpieces trying to create a “westernfriendly mirage”. The city is vastly empty and lacks appropriate space for pedestrians and human-scale public places. In a rush to invite international starchitects the city has side-lined the possibility of young creative professionals. Despite these short-comings Astana has been a successful city in many ways. It was developed by Nazarbayev as an all-inclusive and tolerant city promoting intra-religions and intra-ethnic harmony. With the threat of militant Islam at the southern border, such a move is a strategic necessity. Nazarbayev has also promoted policies geared to higher education and support of small businesses. But Astana remains at an awkward cross-road of post-Soviet
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rigid top-down planning and neo-liberal aspirational architecture, while Almaty has gained reputation of the classier city (Fraser & Kim, 2015).
described as a masterpiece in urban planning to defeat any popular revolutions, thwarted by geography and cartography (Sánchez-Cuenca, 2014).
A sign from the stars – Naypyidaw, Myanmar
The city lacks a clear and articulated urban form, but instead is arranged as a series of low density clusters linked by giant roadways. It is laid in large subadministrative zones – hotels, official residences, government buildings and military compound [Image 7]. There is no clear city centre or any public spaces where people may congregate or protest, making it the ultimate dictatorial city [Image 8]. The city boasts of 20-lane highways for cars, but lacks pedestrian paths for people [Image 6]. It boasts of at least four golf courses but no public squares. It is home to a safari park and an air-conditioned penguin habitat but very few people. It is speculated to have cost the state 4 billion dollars to construct, while spending only 0.4% of its GDP on healthcare. It boasts high speed internet and reliable electricity, when it surrounding villages are entrenched in poverty (Kennard & Provost, 2015). Such is the contradiction of Naypyidaw.
Amidst a nearly five-decade military rule Myanmar (formerly Burma), the ruling military junta shifted the administrative capital from Yangon to a greenfield site near Pyinmana. The new site located 320 km north of the old capital sprawls nearly the five times of Los Angeles, but only houses one million people. The reason for the move is shrouded in mystery. Some speculate that an astrologer close to the ruling General Than Shwe advised him to move foreseeing a coup. A year later in 2006, every ministry of the Myanmar government had moved to a vast but barren tract of land. The move was justified as solution for the expansion of government facilities without straining the urban infrastructure of Yangon. It was pitched a new “Brasilia or Canberra”. Additionally, the new site was more “strategically located” in comparison to Yangon. Military planners developed Naypyidaw with no input from civil society (Sánchez-Cuenca, 2014; Varadarajan, 2007).
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3. Rawalpindi and Islamabad green belt. Source - reddit.com 4. Photograph of Neighbourhood model designed by Doxiadis. Source - unknown. 5. Construction projects in Astana. Source www.guardian.com 6. Starchitect buildings comissioned by Nazabayev. Source - Taimas Almukhanov (2017) www.guardian.com 8. “A 14-lane highway in the centre of Naypyidaw, the capital of Burma.” (Kennard & Provost, 2015) Image Source – (Nic Dunlop/ Panos Pictures, 2015) Retrieved from www. theguardian.com 9. Large human-less scale infrastructure Google maps 10. A city without a center. Source - Google Maps 11. Amravati - Masterplan. Source - livemint. com 12. Amravati - Renders. Source - livemint.com
However, despite official claims, many believe that the real reason was that the military junta feared a political uprising in the major city of Yangon. It has been
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In 2016, the National League for Democracy head by Aung San Suu Kyi, won the elections to form a new democratic government. But the new government despite decades of fighting against military rule has moved into its predecessors’ ode to dictatorship planning seemingly without questioning its origins. Furthermore, the
atlantis extravagant planning of the generals did not extend to housing for its non-military politicians, instead dormitories were built to accommodate the country’s premier law makers and bureaucrats. Following Suu Kyi’s election, hundreds of freshman lawmakers moved into these dormitories with conditions ironically like the prisons they occupied during the dictatorship (Bengali, 2017). Can a young democracy flourish under a dogmatic cityscape? One of these is not like the others – Amravati, Andhra Pradesh (India)
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Shifting capital cities is not new in the Indian context. Examples include the story described in the beginning of this article, the shifting of the British Imperial Capital from Kolkata to New Delhi, and Nehru’s (the first Indian Prime Minister) tryst with High Modernism. But India’s most recent venture is the story of Amravati. Unlike the other instances in this article, Amravati is not only a capital shift, but a new capital for the newly bifurcated state of Andhra Pradesh, a democratic result. While there were existing towns such as Guntur and Vijayawada as contestants for a capital city, the new chief minister T. Chandrababu Naidu opted for a new land citing that they did not fit the parameters for the vision of a world-class capital city (Majumdar, 2016). Land for the city was acquired through a model of acquisition called ‘landpooling’. Despite protests from farmers and activist, the government has intimidated land-owners to give up more that 13000 Ha of land from 19 villages to build Amravati. Vast expanses of highly fertile land has moved to the hands of private corporations through questionable deals. Environmentalist have protested the location, citing that it is being built on a flood-prone and seismic zone. Delhi based architect Romi Khosla writes that, “The implementation of these projects in the form planned in these reports will destroy precious natural environmental resources, while at the same time snatching what remains from existing users by impoverishing villages and farms” (Majumdar, 2016) The designs for Amravati are flashy and unrealistic for the Indian context. But that is the result of external totalitarian planning. Naidu’s vision ranges between Amravati being a futuristic city and drawing inspiration from a city in Bahubali, a popular movie based on mythology. His government claims to be planning for a smart city but are tied to vastu, out dated cosmic spatial planning principles akin the fengshui (Shahane, n.d.). The government invited a Singapore based consortium to design the master plan and an announced open competition was announced for the
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design of the government complexes. Despite the availability of distinguished Indian architects, the competition committee chose renowned foreign architects, Maki & Associates. However, the competition has also been riddled with stories of corruption and biased deals. Within a year, Maki & Associate were removed, to be replaced by a consortium between Mumbai-based Hafeez Contractor and UK-based Foster+Partners in a highly suspect move. Hafeez Contractor is India’s most infamous architect, whose license was revoked in 2009 for professional misconduct (Bharucha, 2009). One can only speculate the reasons for this abrupt change. While India is a fairly stable democratic condition, it suffers authoritarian leaders with delusions of grandeur, and bureaucratic corruption who have found ways to bypass civil society to achieve their end goals. Reflection These new cities can be attributed to the concepts of “High modernism” as defined by James C. Scott (2008) in his book, Seeing as A State. Scott writes that high modernism is “best conceived as a strong version of the beliefs in scientific and technical progress that were associated with industrialization in Western Europe and in North America…”. He goes on to say that it is rooted in a “supreme self-confidence about continued linear progress, […] the rational design of social order, […] and the increasing control of nature (including human nature)”. This form of high modernism often occurs due to three elements – the aspirations of the administrative order that envisions
a sweeping rational engineering of all aspects of social life to improve the human condition, the unrestrained use of the power of the modern state and a weakened civil society that is unable to resist these plans (Scott, 2008). Not all the narratives described below perfectly fit Scott’s authoritarian high modernism criteria, but some come close. As seen with the narratives above, the most crucial element to such elaborate capital city projects might be an authoritarian leader or a megalomaniac group of leaders seeking to strengthen the nation-state. This authoritarian leader make take on many personas – the politician, the dictator, the engineer, the scientist, the architect or the planner. They envision a utopia, one engineered in all aspects of social life with the promise of improving the human condition. However, this vision is sometimes blurred by a more myopic plan for self-preservation as seen with dictatorship planning. Secondly, a chaotic and overcrowded city as the contrasting backdrop to the orderliness that new city would represent. These cities pride themselves in promoting a new social order that shuns traditional cities and planning methods. Lastly, civil-society is disabled to allow these narcistic urban endeavours, which often leads to uncomfortable spatial results. Of course, there may be legitimate reasons for country or state to build a new capital. But they often fall within authoritarian regimes or conditions where democracy is compromised. With increasing cases of climate driven migration and rising sea levels, many countries may be forced to move their capital cities. To ensure that 52
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foreseeable cities do not undertake similar mistakes, the importance of a stable political situation coupled with a strong civil society is paramount for successful cities. • References Bengali, S. (2017, April 19). In this desolate capital, lawmakers live like college students, sleeping in dorms and surviving on noodles. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://www. latimes.comBharucha, N. (2009). Architect Hafeez barred for 1 year for figuring in ad - Times of India. Retrieved 10 December 2017, from http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com Fraser, G., & Kim, M. (2015, July 28). Welcome to Astana, Kazakhstan: one of the strangest capital cities on Earth. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com Hull, M. (2009). Uncivil politics and the appropriation of planning in Islamabad. In Crisis and Beyond (pp. 452–81). London: Routledge. Kennard, M., & Provost, C. (2015, March 19). Burma’s bizarre capital: a super-sized slice of post-apocalypse suburbia. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com Khan, S. (2010, March 27). Islamabad’s 50 Years: A Downward Spiral in Urban Planning. Retrieved 21 November 2017, from https://www.huffingtonpost.com Mate, M. S. (1983). Daulatabad: Road to Islamic Archaeology in India. World Archaeology, 14(3), 335–341. Sánchez-Cuenca, J. (2014). An Instant Capital Expands in Myanmar. Retrieved 20 November 2017, from http://www. thepolisblog.org Schatz, E. (2004). What Capital Cities Say About State and Nation Building. Nationalism and Ethnic PoliticsScott, J. C. (2008). Seeing like a state: how certain schemes to improve the human condition have failed (Nachdr.). New Haven, Conn.: Yale Univ. Press. Shahane, G. (n.d.). How Chandrababu Naidu’s new capital Amaravati has turned into a train wreck [Text]. Retrieved 29 November 2017, from https://scroll.in Varadarajan, S. (2007). Dictatorship by cartography, geometry. Retrieved 20 November 2017, varadarajan.blogspot.com Venkatesh, K. (2017, March 18). Muhammad bin Tughlaq: The Sultan of Swing. http://www.livemint.com
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