Flagship building is not a new idea: the Coliseum, Rome, Parthenon, Athens and
Hanging Gardens of Babylon were all officially designed structures intended not
only to house distinctive public functions but equally to convey, through their
very presence, statements about the governments that erected them. They were
flagships of much more general policies and ideas than the utilitarian functions
they performed. The modern rediscovery of this phenomenon can be dated
perhaps to the construction of the Centre Pompidou (1977) on the Beaubourg,
Paris (Hamnett and Shoval, 2003). It was clearly intended not only to house
a modern art collection but more significantly to proclaim the stance of the
French government and indeed the French nation as cultured and progressive
and the pretensions of Paris in particular within world city competitive
league tables.