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In this piece, dutch co-housing expert Tijmen Kuyper explores the relationship between architecture, community, and the global rise of populism.
MAKE [LOCAL] GREAT AGAIN!
Trump is back. Across the world populists gain power. In The Netherlands the unexpected landslide victory of far-right Islam-hating pro-Nexit populist Geert Wilders shook the country. What can we learn? I argue that we should not shun populist voters but understand the reasons that fuel this global movement that promises to “Make [Local] Great Again!”
What part does architecture play? Many populists agitate against globalist culture and its modern architectural aesthetic that is “forced upon normal people by a globalist elite”. The FVD, another Dutch far-right party, even states that only traditional architecture should be allowed anymore.
How did we loose the local architecture that populists now long for? In the 20th century economically superior construction technologies of glass, steel and concrete conquered the world with its’ “less is more” aesthetics. The modernist mantra of “form follows function” prioritised the functions of car speed, daylight and economic efficiency. This was celebrated as a symbol of a world-wide peaceful prosperous society.
Modern “progress” has not just replaced vernacular with flats. Pre-war Netherlands was segregated in communities. Catholics, protestants, socialist and liberals all had their own schools, churches, media, friends, romances and neighbours. After WW2 these communities were rapidly replaced by the international consumer society with the nuclear family at its core. Neighbourhoods lost their gathering places. Traditions, rituals and community that had given life structure, meaning and safety, got lost.
Single lifestyle streets transformed from an extension of the home between house and church to the eerie social-spatial scale of the entire world. The world is for most a huge, ungraspable, scary scale. If people feel that that uninvitedly invades their street, they retreat. In many previously thriving monoculture low-fence neighborhoods, people felt a loss of safety and started to raise their fences. Foreign guest workers, refugees and migrants added colorful diversity to society. Yet, the ever open Dutch curtains, shut.
Lately the nuclear family is rapidly being replaced by the new core of society: the individual. 40% of Dutch households are now single person while half of the country suffers from loneliness. These percentages climb rapidly while more fences are erected between lonely households and the vast world right outside.
The worldwide populist outcry for more local is a valid one.
Yet, architectural aesthetic is not the honest solution. Humans are herd animals. Our natural habitat is community itself. How can the built environment facilitate community again?
There is no simple answer to that question. And don’t be fooled by anyone who pretends otherwise. For example, capitalizing on the sharp rise in loneliness developer-led “co-living” projects pop up in cities around the world. But beware, despite their award-winning architecture, fundamental principles for community like a sense of ownership, social-spatial scales and privacy are disregarded in these money machines.
But also, don’t be fooled by naïve idealistic thinking. We should respect the human nature to share their daily live with people that they resonate with. We should accept that this leads to partly homogeneous communities. If we deny this human nature, the fast world is forced right to peoples’ double locked front door. That frightens people and it is these kind of fears that populists stir up.
“Building inclusive spaces specifically involves limiting their publicity”
– Kukla (2021, p.277)
Do I argue that we should return to segregated communities? No. For societies to thrive, a blissful diversity of people should indeed share experiences, skills and insights. But as we allow the forming of mono-lifestyle communities, we should also ensure their soft borders. On higher social-spatial scale levels, further from front doors, communities do need social and physical soft edges that overlap and establish exciting inclusive and diverse public spaces.
In conclusion, we need to take the voters’ cry for more ‘local’ serious. But the answer is not simply the rejection of a modern aesthetic but rather their modernist functions. Instead, I argue that form should follow the functions of community. And, beware, in its best intentions to connect, if uncalled for, imposed diversity, can frighten, and lead to even more disconnect. Populists ignite this fear of the intimidating global forced upon people and provide their convincing solution: More safety. More local. Away with the foreign!
With architecture and policy that facilitates resident-led communities, people might not have to feel that the increasingly illusive world is banging on their door. And then hopefully architecture can make this unstable world a little bit less fruitful for the rise of the populists.
Reference Literature
Atto, F. N. S. (2008). Architecture, the national and globalization. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261174639_Architecture_the_national_and_globalization
Blokker, J. M. (2022). Heritage and the ‘Heartland’: Architectural and urban heritage in the discourse and practice of the populist far right. Journal of European Studies, 52(3–4), 219–237. https://doi.org/10.1177/00472441221115560
Blom, S., & Soomeren, P. v. (2015). Ontmoeten als keuze; Succesfactoren voor gemengd wonen. DSP groep.
Cheng, I. (2022, June 12). Modernist City Planning Ideals: A Roadmap To Decline? Urban Design lab. https://urbandesignlab.in/modernist-city-planning-ideals/
Cody, J. W. (2005). Exporting American Architecture 1870-2000. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203986585
Frausto, S. (2020, June 22). The Architecture of Populism: Media, Politics, and aesthetics (L.-C. Szacka, Ed.). https://journals.open.tudelft.nl/footprint/announcement/view/311
Hall, P. (1996). Cities of Tomorrow: An Intellectual History of Urban Planning and Design Since 1880. John Wiley & Sons.
Kukla, Q. R. (2021). City Living; How Urban Dwellers and Urban Spaces Make One Another. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1083/oso/97801990855369.001.0001
Kuyper, T. (2025). Architecture for Community: a Cohousing Pattern Language. Retrieved from CoWonen.com/book
Nio, I., Treffers, A., & Suurenbroek, F. (2022). Handboek voor erfafscheidingen Onderzoeknaardeovergangtussenprivéenopenbaarindetuinstad. Hogeschool van Amsterdam.
Rechts-populistische partijvorming. (2023). Parlement.com. https://www.parlement.com/id/vjkvbzmnlnjc/rechts_populistische_partijvorming
Rodrik, D. (2021). Why does globalization fuel populism? Economics, culture, and the rise of Right-Wing populism. Annual Review of Economics, 13(1), 133–170. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-economics-070220-032416 Sim, D. (2019). Soft City. Washington: Island Press.
About the Author
Tijmen Kuyper is a Dutch cohousing expert. With his background in both Human Geography and Architecture, he always combines the academic with the practical. People with places. Sunny idealism with cold pragmatism. He recently wrote a book on how architecture can facilitate community engagement.
The book can be downloaded for free on: cowonen.com/book/
About the WEdesign 2024/25 Series: Sharing Place
WEdesign is The Glass-House’s annual series of free interactive public events, held online and in-person in cities across the UK, where we explore collaborative design in placemaking through discussion, debate and playful co-design activities.
Sharing Place brings people together to propose more equitable ways of sharing our places and spaces, as well as creating places to share experiences, skills and other things we value, through thoughtful placemaking.
Our online events create provocative spaces for conversation and are open to participants across the UK and further afield. Our Think Pieces bring together a series of blogs from a range of voices to explore the WEdesign series theme.
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Find out more and book a place at one of our WEdesign Sharing Place events here.
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