Design for Dissent (3/4)

Protests in Places of High Political Value

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on 28th August 1963, identified as one of the major reformative events in the modern history of the United States, was marked by a historically huge gathering in a place of high political value. The final goal of the event was discussion of a bill, which was preceded by a march, speeches, and performances in front of a large crowd gathered in a place recognized by people as the place of political heads and decision-makers. 

Figure 1: Lincoln Memorial, White House, Washington Monument and US Capitol building 

 

The schedule of events was carefully drafted out well in advance for the day. When marchers poured in, they assembled in the area between the Washington Monument and the Ellipse behind the Whitehouse. People then marched towards Lincoln Memorial with men on the Constitution Avenue and their wives on the Independence Avenue. Leaders of the protest walked with the men, to which James Haskins notes that "It is ironic how second place of women was accepted without question on this day of protest against racial discrimination" ¹. The marchers in the initial assembly were about a hundred thousand and by the time they regathered in front of Lincoln Memorial, they swelled to more than two hundred thousand. During the main event, organizers and leaders were seated inside and on the podium of Lincoln Memorial with a huge crowd all around them, scattered on the steps leading up to the memorial and densely packed in a semi-circular form in the area immediately adjacent to the steps. The stretch between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington monument was packed with people, and the crowd even poured out into adjacent streets. Several other protests have taken place at this venue including Women's March and March for LGBTQ rights, which have used the place in similar ways of marching, gathering, and performing for expression of mass dissent, highlighting the appeal of the place to protest groups.

Another significant event of mass demonstration happened on 3rd and 4th June 1989 in Tiananmen Square and is remembered as a day when a series of student-led protests led to the Government's response of suppressing it using the brutal force of military, demonstrating the intensity of threat it presented and hence its strength. The events of 3-4 June 1989 and the nature of involvement of the state in it is established in global memory as a historic day when people crossed political boundaries and confronted the political powers in place, enforcing a response. This dialogue between the people and the state was of the highest political level in a charged political complex.  

Figure 2: Monument to the People’s Heroes and Mausoleum of Mao Zedong – Tiananmen Square

 The June 3-4 incident, also known as Tiananmen Square 'massacre' was preceded by several marches, gatherings, and hunger strikes led by students on the Chang'an Avenue and Tiananmen Square, and the movement had started gaining significant public support ². After the Martial Law was declared about two weeks before the incident, and the first wave of tanks and APC's appeared on the streets of Beijing, the high rises emptied and people swarmed into the streets, flooding them, making it impossible for the vehicles to move without crushing them. People offered food and drinks to the soldiers and started having a reasonable dialogue with them. The army was stuck in the streets for two, sometimes three days, and eventually decided to turn back ³. On the evening of June 3, in Muxidi, when the army came back, this time with live ammunition, and started breaking through the barricades, people came down to the streets again, which was becoming a regular response to the arrival of the army in the streets ⁴. People started hurling stones, and abuses and a bus was set ablaze - then the army began firing and people were running around shocked and terrified ⁵. The army had to crawl for hours through the stretch between Muxidi and Tiananmen Square due to the blockades set up by people one after another in their path. Eventually, Tiananmen Square was surrounded from all sides by the army; by tanks and APC's on the Chang'an Avenue and Qianmen Street in the north and south and by ranks of soldiers all across the steps of Museum of Revolution History and the steps of the Great Hall of the People on east and west, completely trapping anyone in the Square ⁵. The gunfire continued until about 4:00 am until every spare square inch was occupied by PLA troops ⁶. The last group of students at the Monument of People's Heroes was confronted by the military on all sides. By the influence of senior members in the protest group, the decision of leaving was finally taken and the students left ⁶. The army had complete control of the Square the next morning and whenever people approached the square, they were fired upon resulting in the accumulation of dead bodies around the square since even ambulances were shot ⁴. Since the incident of 1989, the government has increased surveillance in Tiananmen Square significantly with cameras on big lamp posts, loudspeakers blasting music or government orders, and many policemen patrolling to ensure any non-permitted activity is contained within less than a minute ⁴.

While in the cases of March on Washington and Tiananmen Square incident, the number of protesters range in hundreds of thousands coming out in a public place on a single day, in case of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina, a group of women maintains a protest movement in which they walk in circles around the Piramide de Mayo in the center of Plaza de Mayo, one by one, since 1977 for their disappeared children and grandchildren by the repressive military government. Plaza de Mayo is where Argentina first declared its independence from Spain and where many groups have come to claim their rights throughout Argentina's history ⁷. 

 

Figure 3: Iconic political marker of Piramide de Mayo in Plaza de Mayo

The Mothers started noticing each other again and again in the waiting halls of government offices while enquiring about their 'disappeared' children facing persistent neglect and unsatisfactory answers ⁷. Gradually over time, they started questioning the state formally as the group grew and began organizing meetings in Churches. Marches were done in Plaza de Mayo wearing white scarves on their heads by Mothers representing diapers to gain public and government attention. At a time when any act of political opposition was suppressed by the military regime, the Mothers maintained their weekly walks every Thursday, at times even playing hide and seek with the military in and around the Plaza ⁷. Though the Mothers movement had many more political aspects including establishing contact with the foreign media and diplomats, maintaining continuous pressure on the government for answers, spreading awareness and gaining momentum locally, which were done from their homes, from churches and in the latter part of their movement, by traveling to other countries; the role of ritually circling inside Plaza de Mayo was pivotal in establishing their identity and intent of an honest dialogue with the highest level of government. Their persistent efforts resulted in the fall of the military government and restoration of democracy, and they continue to remain an organization still searching for the missing children and standing up for other human rights issues.

ATTRIBUTES OF THE THREE PLACES FACILITATING EXPRESSION OF DISSENT

The three events occurred in widely varying socio-political circumstances and the built environment is only one among many contextual factors involved. In these incidents, protest groups acquired physical space that was available in the city and gave it a new meaning through means of marching, gathering, sit-ins, and hunger strikes, a phenomenon termed as appropriation by Tali Hatuka ⁸. The political complexes that are influenced by an authoritarian past are bound to be needing a greater degree of appropriation for a democratic event like a protest. Even when attempts to decrease this effort are made, by democratic states through various means like opening up previously out of bounds areas for the public, which help establish the new political reality to some extent, still, the shortcomings of overall layout is revealed as soon as the protester counts swell up and serve to internal tension between the state and people. Also, if one were to intervene in the design of the political complex of a democratic state, it would be essential to identify and incorporate these attributes that facilitate dissent expression, to truly embrace the idea of democracy.

Washington political complex, just like many other political complexes, uses long pathways reaching up to politically significant buildings, with large spaces to gather nearer to the building as a forecourt to reinforce high political value. It is also used for rituals and ceremonies by the government, which is tangible evidence of an ideological assertion of authority ⁹. The march on Constitution Avenue and Independence Avenue assumed the same established political value. The place being accessible to the common public and being large enough to accommodate a huge gathering was an obvious need for a demonstration of such a scale. The vast open spaces of this scale are a rare sight making it a public place of high value within the city. The place that was chosen for gathering lies at the central intersection of multiple politically significant buildings and is visible and accessible directly from most, including the buildings in which political heads reside. This arrangement not only produces a centrally focused 'political gaze' in the spot of the demonstration but also induces into protesters a sense of 'watchmen' looking into the political buildings around and the view was appropriately composed, with long boulevards on either side and a grand backdrop of Lincoln Memorial. Apart from local visibility, it is a place of international identity and the event was seen and heard across the world. During the protest, marches and gathering happened in places designed to walk and to congregate, with comfortable pathways, detailed architectural treatment of streets, curbs, fences, landscaping, etc. and regularly maintained land. Once the protesters had assembled, the leaders took up the stage and while addressing a large crowd, a backdrop of the scale of the crowd enhanced the visibility and image of speakers. The backdrop being symbolically close to the projected idea of the protest, helped people align their hopes and struggle with it. During Monday Demonstrations in East Germany between 1989-91, St. Nicholas Church's grand façade served similarly as the backdrop for speakers, which emerged as a venue for a series of protests eventually resulting in the demolition of the Berlin wall. In Washington, a higher spot while addressing the crowd being a position looking directly into the United States Capitol building assumed a spatial arrangement that facilitated the statement of challenging the government directly. A strong marker of the Washington Monument anchored the other end of the crowd. Markers can also keep the group together and focused while marching, orienting, and directing movement. 

In Tiananmen Square, the success of the student-led movement until suppression was huge, evident in the fact that common people across the society joined in even at the cost of their lives, not only the students who started it. The use of military and lethal force by the government revealed the level of threat this movement posed to them. At the center of the entire sequence of events was the physical location of Tiananmen Square, which is approached from the north by Chang'an Avenue, used for ritual marching on events of political significance. Just like Washington, it is one of the most commonly identifiable public places associated with political power in the city. Historic image of Tiananmen Square, with the Forbidden City across the road as the 'rulers' place', even though the active government did not operate from there, adds meaning to the expression of dissent by masses there. Just like the venue in Washington, it is a place accessible to the common public and large enough to accommodate a huge gathering and is a rare and hence valued large open space available to the public in the otherwise densely built fabric. Placement of significant buildings around Tiananmen Square produces a centrally focused gaze that attracts any protesting group. Being a place of international identity, it attracts global and national gaze. Known to be the largest public square in the world ⁴ it is designed to walk and to congregate, two fundamental activities for any protesting group. Grand facades of the National Museum of China and Great Hall of People flank the square from East and West, and of Mausoleum of Mao Zedong from South contributing to the iconic image of the Square. The Monument to the People's Heroes in the square acts as an iconic marker, where the last group of students remained till the end when the military had them surrounded from all sides. Unlike the venue in Washington, where a strip of publicly accessible land stretches between Lincoln Memorial and US Capitol building, with Oval garden merging with this stretch at Washington Monument, making a much larger open area together, Tiananmen Square is rather a pocket of open space within densely built surroundings, with Chang'an Avenue in the north serving as a pathway to march on when approaching the square during protests. Unfortunately, this layout benefitted the army when they finally surrounded the square by simply occupying all edges and blocking the two pathways from where the exit was possible.

Just like any other political complex, Plaza de Mayo is also a place identifiable with political power and is accessible to the common public through three wide pathways that approach it from East, North-East and South-East, and narrower streets from North and South. The plaza itself is a place designed for pedestrian movement, which is a basic tool of dissent expression. In Plaza de Mayo, the level of 'gaze' attained is much higher than Tiananmen Square or Washington, since it is essentially an open court surrounded by politically significant structures including the President's Palace at one edge, the Cathedral and most important banks all around. The Plaza is so politically charged, that when the Mothers walked in it, even if individually, their message was strongly communicated. The iconic marker of Piramide de Mayo in the middle of the plaza provides an anchor to Mothers to walk around. The significant aspect of protest of Mothers of Plaza de Mayo wasn't the number of people but a weekly ritual over a long period and the focused 'gaze' towards the center of the Plaza had a crucial role in ensuring that it emerged as the most powerful act in the context, when any public act of expression of dissent against the military government was met with harsh repercussions like abductions, torture, and even death. Apart from internal composition, the political complexes attract international gaze in general. This attracted the Mothers as their expression was seen and heard, not only by the agencies of the state but also by the national and international public through media to expose the oppression and neglect by the state resulting in increased spectatorship which eventually led to the restoration of democracy. 

In the three examples, the recurring features that facilitated dissent expression are:

·       Places identifiable with political power and used ritually to maintain political significance

·       Places accessible to the common public and large enough to accommodate a huge gathering

·       Relatively large open spaces located in denser built fabric - establishing a higher value

·       Visibility and locally concentrated political gaze

·       International identity resulting in global and national gaze

·       Places designed to walk and to congregate

·       Places surrounded by iconic backdrops

·       Places with iconic markers

 

 

Read the next and final section here which attempts to visualize a theoretical model of a political complex in which the expression of mass dissent is the driving force of design. The need to visualize such a place comes out of the evident lack of translation of existing social motives for the same.

Read the previous section of this article here, which presents the influence of sites of religious significance on sites of political significance carried over into today’s political complexes of states that have reformed to democratic societies like India, followed by identifying democratic places in the traditional built environment, revealing key differences between the two kinds of places. 

Read the introduction of this article here.

References:

1. J. Haskins. March day dawns. In The March on Washington. New York: Harper Collins Publisher; 1993. pp. 78-90.
2. D. Zhao. A Brief History of the 1989 movement. In The Power of Tiananmen - State-Society relations and the 1989 Beijing Student Movement. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; 2001. pp. 145-207.
3. T. Brook. Interview: Timothy Brook. (Accessed 28 May 2020).
4. J. Wong. Interview: Jan Wong. (Accessed 28 May 2020).
5. J. Pomfret. Interview: John Pomfret. (Accessed 28 May 2020).
6. R. Munro. Interview: Robin Munro. (Accessed 28 May 2020).

7. M. G. Bouvard. Revolutionizing Motherhood : The Mothers of the Plaza De Mayo Latin American Silhouettes. First ed. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources Inc.; 1994.

8. T. Hatuka. Choosing a place to Protest. In The Design of Protest. Austin: University of Texas Press; 2018. pp. 27-44.

9. W. H. Coaldrake. City Planning and Palace Architecture in the Creation of the Nara Political Order: The Accommodation of Place and Purpose at Heijo-Kyo. In Geremie Barme (ed.) East Asian History. 1(1). Fyshwick: Goana Print;1991. pp. 38-39.

Sources of Figures:

1. Figure 1: Adapted from Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz. CC BY-SA 4.0
2. Figure 2: Adapted from Xue Charlie Qiuli , Wang Zhigang, and Mitchenere Brian. In search of identity: the development process of the National Grand Theatre in Beijing, China. The Journal of Architecture. 2010; 15(4): 517-535
3. Figure 3: Adapted from Diego Spivacow. Plaza de Mayo. CC BY 2.5 AR