Assembly Required: preview

I am not generally accustomed to showing readers what I received for Christmas, but my beloved wife gave me a fascinating book that is at once informative and beautiful in appearance. It's called Assembly Required: Inside the World's Most Powerful Buildings, and it was published by TLDR News in 2025. This is a book that I had long wished to see published, as its subject matter sometimes came up in my political science classes. Many of us have noted that legislative assemblies meet in rooms with different shapes. In many countries, deputies fan out from the speaker in a semicircle, while in other countries they face each other across an open floor. Still others have legislators sitting in a horseshoe or in a room resembling a classroom or theatre. 

The architecture of legislative buildings also tells much about a country's political culture. Some parliamentary buildings, such as the US Capitol, have a neoclassical style, which is hardly surprising, given the American founders' affection for ancient Greek and Roman precedents. Others, such as Canada's, the United Kingdom's, and Hungary's, are built in a palatial gothic style much favoured during the 19th century. Still others, such as Brazil's and Australia's, sport a 20th-century modern style, with sleek lines and minimal ornamentation.

TLDR News in London has just published the current volume, a paperback with nearly 300 pages, co-authored by Ben Blissett, Georgina Findlay, Nadja Lovadinov, Rory Taylor, and Scarlet Watchorn. Most of the book's contents consist of photographs of the parliamentary buildings of several countries around the world plus the European Union. Chapters are also devoted to seating plans, domes, columns, windows, symmetry, clocks, central atriums, local materials, rotundas, towers, and statues. It's a feast for the eyes, especially for this reader who as a child aspired to become an architect or city planner.

I found most fascinating the descriptions of the seating arrangements on pages 14 and 15, as seen below:

  

The semicircle "is designed to encourage agreement in parliament, by presenting the members as a single group." The opposing benches frame politics as "a battle between the government and the opposition, encouraging parliamentarians to make their arguments directly towards their opponents." The horseshoe combines elements of both, encouraging debate and collaboration. The circle emphasizes equality, while the classroom is characteristic of autocratic regimes, such as North Korea, China, and Russia. I have long been persuaded of the importance of political culture in the functioning of institutions of government. But such cultures do not develop out of nothing. Even something as seemingly innocuous as the shape of a room can profoundly influence the culture of a parliamentary body.

This is the point that Sir Winston Churchill made before the House of Commons during the Second World War:

I beg to move, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider and report upon plans for the rebuilding of the House of Commons and upon such alterations as may be considered desirable while preserving all its essential features.On the night of 10th May, 1941, with one of the last bombs of the last serious raid, our House of Commons was destroyed by the violence of the enemy, and we have now to consider whether we should build it up again, and how, and when. We shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us. Having dwelt and served for more than 40 years in the late Chamber, and having derived fiery great pleasure and advantage therefrom, I, naturally, would like to see it restored in all essentials to its old form, convenience and dignity (HC Deb 28 October 1943 vol 393 cc403-73).

Churchill had his way, and today's House of Commons in London resembles the pre-1941 chamber in its seating of members of parliament.

Thus far I have only paged through this book, but I look forward to spending more time with it, taking in the colourful photographs and reading the accompanying text.