We live in Canberra and Washington, DC, two stately capital cities that embody all the trappings and the ethos of the bureaucratic state. With their monuments, statues and symmetrical lines, the architects of both cities dreamt them as manifestations of the rational administrations that would work there. Imposing government buildings are the dominant architectural feature of both places, rising like redwood plantation trees in a planned forest. Irrespective of the decade or the party in charge, policies and plans that emerge from these buildings have the hallmarks of a planned forest, too: ordered, consistent and ostensibly guided by clear rules.