The Parliament that Science Built: Credibility, Architecture, and Britain's Palace of Westminster.

Abstract

Winston Churchill’s oft-quoted declaration, made in 1943 following the destruction of Britain’s House of Commons legislative chamber during the Blitz, was not only an assertion that architecture matters, but that the architecture of parliament buildings holds special importance. For Churchill, it seemed obvious that the chamber should be rebuilt in its traditional rectangular, cross-benched shape, rather than in the semi-circular fashion typical of republican governments, favoured by those who Churchill scorned to as “political theorists.” What architect Giles Gilbert Scott subsequently designed was a House of Commons of continuity and tradition.