Soft Power Architecture: Mechanisms, Manifestations and Spatial Consequences of Embassy Buildings and Exported Ideologies

Abstract

Architecture can be viewed as a system of circumstance structuring that does not exist independently from the contextual occurrences. It captures, constructs and legitimizes oftentimes conflicting societal realities and ideologies. One of these aspects is observable within the concept of soft power, defined as the capability to attract and persuade without coercion and payments. Additionally, soft power resources are the assets that produce such attraction but cannot always be measured or have tangible physical manifestations. What happens when soft power does have spatial manifestations? Soft power architecture is viewed an amalgamation of processes and outcomes that must be examined and explained as an indissoluble structure, throughout its lifespan. This research focuses on understanding, mapping and classifying the state-sponsored (re)production processes for spaces aimed at the communication of the officially sanctioned images/messages of national identity. Placement of embassy buildings is observed as the representative model for this research. Six exploratory case studies of embassy buildings in Tokyo, Japan and Belgrade, Serbia confirm the necessity for the re-examination of the politics of space-making for diplomatic-consular headquarters. The findings dispute the initially presumed discrepancies between the proclaimed values, implementation strategies and examined spatial manifestations. Embassy architecture, with its privileges and realization process, vary significantly depending on the interpretation of ideological narrative-building. The relevancy of architectural design is of secondary importance, while the examined conceptualization and management processes are more indicative of spatial (re)production and freedom and control in urban spaces. Apart from providing an applicable methodology and method for examining soft power architecture, this research offers relevant data primarily for architects and urban planners, putting forward strategies for communication of identity for exported architectural typologies. Furthermore, the universality of these typologies allows their spatial consequences to be examined in various urban matrices and cross-referenced with points of interest for individual case studies.