In a well-known aphorism, Henri Lefebvre asserted that "the city is the projection on the ground of social relations". What happens if we falsify this statement to say that it is the "projection on the ground of political relations"? How can we grasp the links between the configurations of politics at its different scales, and the design of the city and its buildings, which are often indissociable, given that public buildings have, through their location and the spaces surrounding them, an imprint that goes beyond the trace on the ground of their walls?
This is a particularly complex question when it comes to democratic processes and their interaction with planning and construction programs.
In the post-1945 reconstruction cycle in Western Europe, democracy contributed to the failure of certain projects, such as that of Marcel Lods in Mainz. It was subsequently presented as a positive force. One of the most striking statements in this context was made in 1960 at the inauguration of Hans Scharoun's Philharmonie by Social Democrat MP Adolf Arndt, who declared: "Democracy is the master builder". This slogan presided over a number of discussions involving the elected representatives of the Federal Republic of Germany, and later the reunified Germany, with marked and striking architectural effects - both positive and negative in terms of project definition and realization.
Two matrices need to be distinguished here: that of elected representation and that of direct expression by the intended beneficiaries, whose proponents are obviously driven by the best democratic intentions. In operations undertaken by the representatives of the people, architects are in a sense their delegates, giving built form to their program through a variety of mediations. In participatory projects, on the other hand, the architects are the agents of the residents, in direct contact with each of them, giving them a real capacity to shape the space of their daily lives.
