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It is from British statesman, prime minister and
author Winston Churchill that we got the phrase,
“We shape our buildings, and afterwards our
buildings shape us.”
Environment and
circumstance can drive behavior. So the shape of
the Kaine Administration in 2006 and the shape of
the work to be done by the Virginia General
Assembly this year may be distinctive as they
embark from new and different physical points of
departure.
Churchill, of course, was
speaking in the wake of the 1941 bombings of World
War II in which the House of Commons in London was
destroyed. “Having dwelt and served for more
than forty years in the late chamber, and having
derived very great pleasure and advantage
therefrom” Churchill suggested, “I, naturally,
should like to see it restored in all essentials
to its old form, convenience and dignity."
Commons was restored to its former glory. Prime
ministership has its privileges.
Churchill’s phrase also could apply to the
restoration work continuing on the Virginia
Capitol in Richmond. That $74+ million project is
now past its half-way point. By February the
original earth removed to allow the construction
of a new public entrance and visitors’ center
under the Capitol’s south lawn will be back in
place. But the renovation and extension project
will not be complete until 2007. The work will
keep the Virginia General Assembly out of the
Capitol when it convenes January 11 and it will
move the inauguration of Governor-elect Timothy M.
Kaine to Williamsburg three days later.
Kaine will be sworn in as Virginia’s 70th
governor outside a tall, for its time, brick
building at the east end of Williamsburg known as
the Colonial Capitol. It is the third capitol
building constructed there and was dedicated in
1934. But Kaine still will become the first
Virginia governor since Thomas Jefferson to be
sworn in at Williamsburg. That’s enough to make
a new governor think big thoughts about a lot more
than just transportation. Conversations about the
proper role of citizens, the human rights,
religious freedom, war and peace, liberty and
tyranny continue. The Colonial Capitol, among
other things, also is an annual venue for
naturalization ceremonies in which immigrants
become New Americans.
The General
Assembly, for its part, will convene in somewhat
unfamiliar surroundings: the old, rehabilitated State Library building on the
northeast edge of Capitol Square. Now known as the
Patrick Henry Building, it shares none of the
passion, fieriness nor radicalism of its namesake.
Here-to-fore, the building has been known as a
really good example of really bad public
architecture. Now it will be known as the crowded
house, where, for any event other than a simple
meeting of the 100 delegates and 40 Senators in
their respective chambers, it will be standing
room only.
That circumstance, of
course, would have suited Churchill just fine.
“Then let them stand,” was his retort to
suggestions that the House of Commons should be
made larger as it was restored. Churchill knew the
old House crackled with energy even when only half
of its members were present and he understood the
forcefulness and directness of debate when the
majority party literally faced its opposition
across the chamber. He was less interested in a
semi-circular assembly arrangement that forced
elected members to face the presiding officer
instead of one another. An assembly arranged thus,
Churchill suggested, could distinguish itself more
by rowdiness and avoidance of accountability than
by meaningful debate and effective action.
How a new governor and a General Assembly will do
in 2006 working from a new place with modern
systems but little history remains to be seen.
Meaningful debate and effective action seem like
good first resolutions to adopt. If each branch of
Commonwealth government can succeed in the highest
sense, Virginians will benefit. Our expectations
are one way we shape our leaders, and afterwards
they shape us.
--
January 3, 2006
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