This is a study of sites and buildings that can be interpreted as conveying strong messages. They were not created to do so, but circumstances and history gave them an extra layer of meaning.

I purposefully avoided documenting those “precedents”. The idea is to understand how a place can become a symbol – even a very personal one – for someone that simply experiences it.

To convince people, propaganda plays with one’s system of references. Certain images are linked to specific historical facts, social conventions, or feelings in order to generate behaviours and opinions. A building having an appropriate imagery or connotations that aren’t necessarily architectural can be used to symbolize an idea.