Bauhaus and the Algorithm: Rethinking Administrative Capacity in the Age of AI

Europe’s twin green and digital transitions are transforming local production and public services while increasing their dependence on technological infrastructures. This paper develops a conceptual framework for place-based resilience around productive and relational capacity, and governance and decision capacity. Its central public administration contribution is to conceptualize technological decision capacity as an emerging dimension of administrative capacity: the institutional ability to scrutinize, negotiate, and retain meaningful authority over technologies embedded in public action. This differs from digital capacity, since extensive AI use and digital skills need not confer control over technological dependencies. The Horizon Europe STARHAUS project illustrates productive and relational capacity through decentralized, human-centric manufacturing and participatory co-design. AI-governance literature, with the RATE AI Method as an applied analytical reference, informs the governance dimension. Descriptive Eurostat evidence contextualizes uneven technological and innovation capacities without directly measuring administrative autonomy. The paper argues that territorial resilience depends on public institutions’ capacity to govern the infrastructures supporting new productive pathways, and proposes an integration agenda for municipal AI adoption, digital twins and cohesion policy.