In the minds of young architecture students, the act of undergoing architectural training at a university means acquiring technical skills while also developing critical thinking. This would then, in theory, turn them into future architects who are able to not only design new buildings but also make conscious decisions about the impact of these buildings on the urban and, more importantly, the cultural and political scale.

However, an ironic contradiction arises in the Western European region where a significant percentage of the tutors of these students have been trained under a curriculum that largely treats architecture as a mere means to shelter and recreation in a destabilised post-war world. How could there be a relation then between, say, landscape architecture and social oppression if landscape architecture is merely seen as the placement of vegetation to create a visually pleasing scenery? Under such a narrow definition, no relation can exist. Yet here we are witnessing the creation of memorials erected in the name of national narratives, surrounded by green belts to impose their cultural relevance.

Meanwhile, in the eyes of the general public, green stands for freedom, peace, and opportunity for growth. Since green is almost automatically coded as kind, landscapes that are designed to support national narratives easily masquerade themselves as harmless nature. With this mindset, it's very easy to miss the many "Heimatschützer" – the self‑proclaimed guardians of the homeland, who are filled with harmless sorrow for the lost national authenticity. Authenticity that just so happens to align with later nationalist ideologies and propaganda publications. Or perhaps it's not about missing them but about pretending to forget them in hopes of erasure of past "mistakes"?

It appears that something is politically and culturally relevant only then, when it's perspicuously flagged as such. If young architects have been taught for years that nothing is inherently political unless explicitly stated for the past half a century, it begs the question: what has been going on behind the scenes while planning our vastly cosmopolitan world? When politics loses its relevance for the majority, the organisations in power have already consolidated their control.