Want to know why the House of Commons still has an adversarial layout, perfectly suited to the weekly verbal jousts between Tony Blair and William Hague? The answer is that it's an accident of history, rather than an arrangement devised for head-to-head political combat at the dispatch box.
The confrontational plan of the Commons - and, indeed, the Dail - derives from the middle ages when, having followed the king's court, England's earliest parliament put down its roots in St Stephen's Chapel at the Palace of Westminster, with the members taking their seats opposite each other in the choir stalls.
When the old palace was destroyed by fire in 1834, it was simply taken for granted that the original layout carried through the centuries in the "Mother of Parliaments" would be replicated in the emblematic new palace designed in that splendid high Victorian-Gothic style by Sir Charles Barry and Augustus Welby Pugin.
This story is told, along with many others, in a wonderful exhibition, The Architecture of Democracy, which has just opened at the Office of Public Works, on St Stephen's Green. Devised for Glasgow's year as UK City of Architecture and Design (1999), it is the first public exhibition to be staged in the OPW's new atrium.
What it explores is the connection between architecture and political ideals, as expressed by parliament buildings all over the world - from their origins in ancient Greece and Rome to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh, the Welsh Assembly in Cardiff and the cleverly-designed extension to our own dear Leinster House.
Throughout time, successive generations of architects have worked to create parliaments that express both democracy and national identity. Indeed, as the press release notes, the pursuit of democratic government has produced "some of the world's most highly charged, stylistically accomplished and resonant works of architecture".
Just think of the Palace of Westminster, with Big Ben as its sentinel. Or the neo-classical grandeur of the United States Capitol in Washington DC. Or Parliament Buildings in Stormont, keyed into the landscape at the head of an axis of which Albert Speer would have been proud. Or indeed the Reichstag in Berlin, now remade by Norman Foster.
The exhibition includes several models showing different versions of Foster's new dome, including one which evokes the Lismore range of Waterford Glass, as well as an earlier plan to float a glass roof over the entire building. The spiral ramp within the dome as built, symbolising "the people over parliament", is also well-illustrated.
The exhibition, curated by Deyan Sudjic and Helen Jones, brings together architectural drawings and models, photographs, paintings and other cultural artifacts to show the evolution of parliamentary designs.
One of the early examples of the very strong tradition of neo-classicism as a house style for parliaments was the old Parliament House on College Green, which was the first building in the world specifically designed for a two-chamber legislature. Completed in 1733, it was remade to house the Bank of Ireland after the Act of Union in 1800.
Contrast its windowless facades with Richard (Lord) Rogers' competition-winning design for the Welsh Assembly, a stunning glass box to symbolise this new era of transparency and accountability. Or the deconstructive spirit at the heart of Enric Miralles' controversial plan for the Scottish Parliament, now massively over-budget.
Visitors are also given a chance to compare what was built with what might have been, as in the case of the League of Nations in Geneva, where more radical, forward-looking modernist designs in a 1927 competition were rejected in favour of a stolid neoclassical pile not unlike something Hitler himself might have commissioned. The modernists did have their day, however, with such extraordinary edifices as Le Corbusier's all-concrete Punjabi parliament in Chandigarh (1954), Louis Kahn's masterly essay in Dacca, Bangladesh, and Oscar Niemeyer's sculptural assembly of parliamentary buildings set in the urban prairie of Brazilia, both dating from 1962.
As the curators note, the 20th century witnessed the construction of more parliamentary buildings than any other, with so many new states coming into being and adopting at least a quasi-democratic system of government. Missing are images of the preposterous parliaments built by some of the "homelands" in Apartheid-era South Africa.
The exhibition includes a fascinating wall of photographs (by Jorg Hempel) of every parliament in Europe, showing how different nations have housed their politicians. Most interesting here, perhaps, are the avowedly nationalistic buildings, such as the vast Gothic extravaganza built for the Hungarian Parliament by the Danube in Budapest. As the demands to service democracy expanded, so has the need to build extensions. The most bizarre is Sir Basil Spence's office block for the parliament in New Zealand, which he drew on the table of his hotel room while out there on a lecture tour. Built exactly as he designed it, the original drawings even have coffee stains on the edges.
NATURALLY, the Leinster House 2000 project is featured, with a model showing just how brilliantly its designers (OPW in collaboration with consultant architects Dolan and Donnelly and Paul Arnold) managed to slot in such a large office building on a tight site just north of Leinster House without in any way compromising the original building.
That's the main reason why it never became the subject of controversy or even of public debate. Not so the Portcullis House office block directly opposite the Palace of Westminster, designed by Sir Michael Hopkins. His attempt at contextualism has produced a pathetic piece of pastiche, topped by funnel-like "chimneys" which are, in fact, air vents.
It is also shocking to discover that Stormont might have been crowned by a tiered tower, even more massive than those on the Liver building in Liverpool, designed by the same architect, Arnold Thornley. An old photograph of the interior shows the pre-1972 parliamentary chamber with the same adversarial layout as its Westminster parent.
Some of Sir Charles Barry's original drawings are on display in a side corridor along with an evocative painting of the House of Commons in the late 19th century and even a dark oak pew from the old House of Lords in College Green. It is also instructive to see plans, sections and perspectives of the circular layout of Grattan's Parliament.
The main exhibition in the atrium is laid out in a semi-circle to reflect the modern preference for a more democratic debating chamber. Heralded outside by two huge banners, it continues at the OPW, at 51 St Stephen's Green, Dublin, until June 23rd before moving on to Manchester, Barcelona, Berlin and Canberra. Admission is free - and well worth a detour.
