In Rome, Italy, tourists flock each day to marvel at the grandeur of ancient ruins: the Colosseum, the Roman Forum, and the Pantheon. Yet integrated into the city’s familiar landmarks are structures far newer, and far more politically charged.
Buildings like the Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana—nicknamed the “Square Colosseum —stand as stark reminders of a different era: one defined not by democratic ideals or cultural development, but rather by the rise of fascist rule. These sites are part of a deliberate attempt by authoritarian regimes to reshape the visual world, embedding their ideology in the environment of daily life.
Indeed, authoritarian architectural forms have long been a means of reinforcing and maintaining power. From Mussolini’s Italy to Stalin’s Soviet Union, dictatorial regimes have relied on monumental architecture and sweeping urban design to assert dominance, cultivate loyalty, and suppress dissent. These environments are carefully crafted to overwhelm, shrinking the individual while magnifying the state. Elements such as towering facades, rigid symmetry, and vast plazas further function as a form of psychological influence; projecting strength, permanence, and order, they condition citizens to see the regime as unshakable and ever-present.
Authoritarian Architecture in History
In the 1930s, Benito Mussolini embarked on an ambitious mission to transform Rome into the capital of a new fascist empire. His projects aimed to draw a direct line between the glory of ancient Rome and the ambitions of modern Italy.
The Via dei Fori Imperiali, a grand boulevard linking the Colosseum to the Piazza Venezia, was constructed at great human and cultural cost, displacing thousands of residents and destroying archaeological treasures in its path. This road became the stage for military parades designed to evoke the power of Caesar and the vision of Mussolini.
Mussolini’s most audacious project, the EUR district, was intended as the site of the 1942 World’s Fair—a showcase of fascist achievement. Although the fair was canceled due to World War II, the district’s imposing neoclassical buildings, including the Square Colosseum, live on as embodiments of Mussolini’s architectural propaganda.
The structures in the district were deliberately designed to feel eternal, drawing heavily from the aesthetics of ancient Rome to portray the regime as the rightful heir to imperial glory. The use of white travertine stone, repetitive classical arches, and grand, symmetrical forms evoked the stability and grandeur of Roman antiquity. Through both its physical scale and symbolic resonance, the EUR district aimed to embed fascism within a continuous narrative of Roman greatness.
This ambition to harness architectural grandeur for authoritarian ends found a powerful echo in Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler inspired in part by Mussolini’s neoclassical revival—commissioned architect Albert Speer to redesign Berlin as Germania, a city that would would serve as the capital of the Nazi world order.
The scale of Speer’s plans for Germania was staggering: a north-south axis stretching nearly five miles, lined with monumental buildings, culminating in a massive domed Volkshalle capable of holding 180,000 people. This hall—intended to be the largest enclosed structure in the world—was to serve as the ceremonial heart of the Third Reich, a space where Hitler could stage mass rallies and render the individual insignificant in the presence of the state. Its immense scale was meant to inspire awe, project the supposed permanence of Nazi rule, and position Berlin as the uncontested capital of a global empire. Speer’s designs were even in and of themselves instruments of oppression, displacing tens of thousands of Berliners and relying heavily on forced labor.
Meanwhile, in the Soviet Union, Stalin pursued a different but equally theatrical form of architectural control, perhaps most famously through the Moscow Metro. Opened in 1935, the metro was designed to be “the people’s palace,” with stations adorned in marble, gold leaf, and intricate mosaics. These lavish designs turned everyday spaces into immersive propaganda, enveloping citizens in a vision of Soviet triumph and progress. As commuters descended into the gleaming underground halls, they were reminded—through art, architecture, and spectacle—of the state’s power and its promises.
The Aesthetics of Modern Authoritarianism
Although the most infamous examples of authoritarian architecture are found in the 20th century, the strategy of using aesthetics to reinforce power is far from obsolete. In fact, contemporary authoritarian regimes continue to rely on visual spectacle to sustain their rule.
North Korea offers perhaps the most obvious continuation of this tradition. Its capital, Pyongyang, is home to vast public squares, towering bronze statues of the Kim dynasty, and synchronized parades that display absolute unity. The Mansu Hill Grand Monument, with its colossal figures of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, is emblematic of how North Korea’s leaders have brought their cult of personality to life in stone and metal.
(Photo Credit: Nicor, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)
Russia, too, has embraced visual politics in the post-Soviet era. One of the most striking examples is the Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces, completed in 2020 just outside Moscow. Designed in dark green steel and adorned with mosaics depicting Russian military victories—including the annexation of Crimea—the cathedral fuses Orthodox religious imagery with nationalist and militarist themes. Nearby, Patriot Park functions as a vast military-themed public space, where tanks, missile launchers, and immersive simulations glorify the Russian armed forces.
In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pursued a distinctly “neo-Ottoman” aesthetic, constructing grand presidential compounds and reviving Ottoman architectural motifs. The Grand Çamlıca Mosque and the controversial reconversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque are part of a broader effort to reshape Turkey’s national identity, linking Erdogan’s rule with a glorified Islamic past. These aesthetic choices signal a deliberate attempt to reframe history and legitimize political power.
China, while less religious in its imagery, has adopted its own architectural strategy to control historical narrative. The expansion of nationalist museums near Tiananmen Square and the restoration of Confucian temples reflect a dual agenda: reaffirming China’s ancient civilizational identity while reinforcing Communist Party legitimacy. Projects such as the Museum of the Communist Party of China in Beijing, opened in 2021, offer a tightly curated account of the Party’s historical arc, emphasizing triumph, sacrifice, and unity.
In each of these cases, architecture serves a dual function: it is both a reflection of the regime’s ideology and a mechanism through which that ideology is enacted. By reconstructing urban landscapes to elevate certain histories and erase others, these governments craft narratives of permanence, continuity, and moral clarity.
Why Aesthetics Matter
It can be tempting to dismiss these architectural and visual spectacles as superficial displays of vanity. Yet, their impact is profound; aesthetics are integral to how authoritarian regimes operate. By saturating public space with curated symbols and monumental designs, authoritarian states become capable of reshaping not only what their citizens see but also what they intrinsically believe.
Grand architecture, in particular, can function as a form of distraction, projecting strength and order even when the state is unstable, unjust, or in crisis. The sheer scale and spectacle of these environments deflects attention from political repression, economic inequality, or human rights abuses. Citizens are enveloped in a visual narrative that feels inevitable, making dissent not just dangerous, but cognitively dissonant. In this manner, the built environment becomes a tool of illusion, inviting awe while quietly reinforcing control.
These aesthetics also manipulate perceptions of time and history. By invoking traditions of ancient empires or mythic pasts, authoritarian leaders fabricate a sense of unbroken continuity. In moments of instability, such imagery roots power in the illusion of timeless legitimacy, suggesting that the regime is not simply in power, but always has been and always will be.
Just as critically, authoritarian architecture reframes the relationship between the individual and the state. In cities designed to dwarf human scale, the citizen is rendered small and peripheral. Power is centralized and monumentalized as the visual world becomes a theater in which authoritarianism is performed and internalized.
A Democratic Contrast
Of course, democratic societies are not immune to the lure of spectacle. National monuments, patriotic parades, and carefully curated political imagery are part of democratic life as well. Yet, there is a critical difference: pluralism. In democracies, public space is typically contested, open to critique, and shaped by a multitude of voices. Monuments can be debated, reinterpreted, or even removed. The architecture of democracy reflects this openness: it tends toward accessibility, flexibility, and multiplicity.
In authoritarian regimes, by contrast, architecture is often monumental in scale and rigid in meaning, designed to project permanence and demand reverence. Buildings and monuments are declarative; their form is fixed, their symbolism predetermined by the state, and their message unambiguous.
The statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il in Pyongyang, for instance, are more than objects of tribute; their towering height, specific placement, and surrounding symmetry enforce a particular mode of spatial engagement. Citizens are meant to approach them in silence, bow in unison, and absorb the scale as a metaphor for the regime’s dominance. The architecture precludes ambiguity or critique; it is constructed to impose, not to invite.
Democratic architecture, in contrast, is often embedded with cues for participation. The National Mall in Washington, D.C., for instance—although it is monumental—is designed as a civic space. It has served not only as a site of national commemoration but also of protest, performance, and political reckoning. Similarly, the openness of the plaza in front of the Reichstag in Berlin stands in stark opposition to the closed, processional boulevards of fascist capitals. In such spaces, the human scale is preserved, movement is not dictated, and symbolism remains subject to change.
Recent disputes over Confederate monuments in the United States and colonial-era statues in Europe illustrate this dynamic. These debates reveal that democratic societies are capable of reflecting on their own histories through their architecture, however slowly or painfully. The ability to reexamine built forms is a crucial check on the aestheticization of power.
Yet even this openness is not guaranteed. In the United States, the boundaries between democratic and authoritarian aesthetics are beginning to blur. On his first day of a second term in 2025, President Donald Trump issued an executive order titled “Promoting Beautiful Federal Civic Architecture,” which closely mirrors a similar directive he introduced at the end of his first term. Though framed in benign terms, the order represents a top-down attempt to dictate the aesthetic identity of the federal government, transforming it into one grounded explicitly in classical forms.
The order calls for federal buildings to “respect regional, traditional, and classical architectural heritage” in order to “ennoble the United States.” Though masked in the language of national pride and beauty, the order promotes a selective reading of history: one that elevates a specific Eurocentric tradition as the visual standard of American life.
The preference for classical architecture is purposeful. These styles have long been associated with imperial power and institutional authority, favored by regimes seeking to project stability and tradition even amid upheaval.
Trump’s order aligns with this lineage while simultaneously framing modernist and Brutalist architecture as soulless and oppressive. His former advisor on the Commission of Fine Arts, Justin Shubow, went so far as to call Brutalism “aesthetic pollution” and advocate for tearing down the FBI building to replace it with a new classical one.
Professional organizations, including the American Institute of Architects, condemned the order, warning that it “stifles innovation,” ignores community needs, and centralizes design decisions within the executive branch.
Critics also note that the order echoes language from earlier attempts to roll back the federal design guidelines first drafted in 1962 by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. Those guidelines emphasized that federal architecture should embody “the finest contemporary American architectural thought” and that the development of an “official style” must be avoided. Trump’s mandate rejects that pluralism, instead redefining beauty as patriotic conformity.
This shift in architectural policy should not be seen in isolation. Architecture is never just about aesthetics; it is about power, history, and control. Architectural decisions influence how people experience government, who feels included in civic life, and which histories are made visible. The 2025 executive order is one more step in the narrowing of democratic space in the United States—a move that places authority in the hands of a single office and defines American identity through a rigid, idealized lens.
As history shows, the realm of architecture has always been a site of political contest. From Mussolini’s imperial boulevards to Stalin’s marble train stations, authoritarian regimes have used architecture not only to display power but to consolidate it. Trump’s efforts to impose a singular architectural vision echo these traditions.
At a time when democratic institutions are under strain and political norms are being rewritten, it is especially important to pay attention to the spaces that surround us. Architecture is slow to change but fast to signal intent. The design of public buildings affects how we gather, protest, remember, and belong.
Architecture is ultimately both an expression of who we are and an indicator of where we are headed. The future of democracy may be written not only in law and policy, but in brick, steel, and concrete.
Architecture is never just about aesthetics; it is about power, history, and control. Architectural decisions influence how people experience government, who feels included in civic life, and which histories are made visible.