Built to Make People Feel Small – When Power Became Architecture

When Architecture Became the Voice of the State

Following the communist takeover in 1944, Sofia underwent a profound transformation. The city was no longer intended merely to serve as Bulgaria's capital. It was also to become a physical representation of the new political order. During the 1950s, the monumental complex now known as the Largo emerged, dominated by the Communist Party headquarters and imposing government buildings. Its architecture drew heavily on Soviet influences and Stalinist monumentalism, where classical forms, massive stone structures, strict symmetry and impressive dimensions were used to express the authority of the state.

This was not an accidental architectural style. Architectural historian Elitza Stanoeva has described how Sofia's new centre emerged through political decisions and Soviet models, with urban planning serving as an instrument for legitimising the new regime. Even more ambitious buildings were proposed, including a monumental House of Soviets that was never constructed. What eventually appeared in the centre of Sofia was therefore only part of an even larger vision.

What makes this particularly interesting is that the buildings were never intended merely as offices for ministers and party officials. They were also symbols. The city became a stage on which the state could present itself. Wide streets and open squares provided space for demonstrations, military parades and organised crowds. Monumental façades formed the backdrop. Citizens became both the audience and the extras in a political performance whose scenery was designed to remain standing for generations.

Having spent many years working with major events, stage design, concerts and international productions, I find it almost impossible not to recognise the similarities. When creating a large production, you work with perspective, scale, lighting, movement and the audience's experience of space. You decide where people will stand, what they will see and what emotions they should take away with them. An impressive stage, an enormous entrance or a building-sized set can create a sense of importance long before anything has actually happened.

The difference is that this particular stage set was never dismantled after the performance.

It became a permanent part of the city.

The Small Human Being Before the Enormous Door

It is the proportions that interest me most. A door does not really need to be any larger than necessary for people to pass through it. Yet throughout history, the buildings of powerful institutions have frequently featured entrances many times larger than their practical function requires. The same applies to columns, staircases, halls and corridors. At some point, practical necessity ends and symbolism takes over.

A person standing in front of such a building physically experiences the difference between their own size and that of the institution. You do not need to understand architecture, history or politics to feel it. The body makes the comparison automatically. Your eyes move upwards. The façade continues far above your head. You stand at the foot of the building, and the institution seems almost infinitely larger than the individual.

Was this a deliberate attempt to make people feel subordinate? I believe it is a reasonable interpretation of an important aspect of the architecture's function, although we obviously cannot attribute precisely the same intention to every architect or every oversized entrance. Monumental architecture serves purposes beyond intimidation or diminishing the individual. It can also express pride, stability, collective identity and a desire to give public institutions dignity. But in an authoritarian state, these symbols acquire a particular significance. When political power also controls much of society, architecture becomes another means of reinforcing the existing order.

The curious thing is that this method is far older than communism. The triumphal arches of the Roman Empire, the temples of ancient Egypt, Europe's royal palaces and the enormous cathedrals of the Catholic Church all used scale and spatial experience to communicate authority. Someone entering a medieval cathedral was not simply expected to understand the greatness of God intellectually. They were supposed to feel it. The ceiling disappeared high overhead, light filtered through stained-glass windows, and the architecture created an experience that ordinary buildings could never provide.

Communism, in a sense, inherited this tradition despite its explicitly secular ideology. Where religion had placed God at the centre, the new political order placed the state, the party, the worker and the socialist future. Monumentality continued to serve a comparable purpose. It made an abstract idea appear greater, more powerful and more real than the individual human being.

An Entire Society Turned into an Advertising Billboard

This is where my fascination with old socialist monumental art comes in. Looking at mosaics, murals, reliefs and sculptures from Bulgaria, Romania and other former communist states, you discover that government buildings were far from the only places used to communicate political messages. Factories, schools, cultural centres, hotels and sometimes entirely ordinary public spaces became carriers of a shared narrative.

Walls depicted powerful workers, women holding children, farmers, engineers and scientists. Their eyes were frequently directed towards a distant horizon. Behind them appeared factories, power stations, rockets, sunrises and modern cities. People were portrayed as strong, determined and united in the construction of a better future. Naturally, the art had aesthetic ambitions, and many of these works are impressive in their composition, colour and craftsmanship. But they also had a communicative purpose.

They were meant to tell people that the future belonged to the society being built around them.

It is almost impossible not to compare this with modern marketing. The difference is that today we use commercials, social media, digital campaigns and AI-generated visions of the future. Communist states used the physical public environment. They also possessed an advantage that modern companies rarely enjoy: they could largely determine what would be built, which messages would be displayed and how much room alternative narratives would receive.

You can choose not to look at a political poster. You can switch off a commercial. But how do you switch off a building that dominates the square you cross every morning? How do you avoid the monumental mosaic at your workplace or the statue standing in the middle of your city's central square?

It was a form of communication that did not require the individual's active attention. It was simply there, a constant reminder of the story the state wanted its citizens to inhabit.

But it would be far too simplistic to reduce every work of art to a propaganda instrument. Behind these creations stood real artists, designers, architects and craftspeople. Many developed artistic expressions that went far beyond the literal political messages of their commissions. Particularly in later decades, socialist monumental art could be surprisingly experimental, abstract and futuristic. That is part of the explanation for why it continues to fascinate people who have absolutely no sympathy for the political systems that financed it.

It is perfectly possible to admire a work of art while questioning the authority that commissioned it.

When the Regime Disappeared but the Scenery Remained

Perhaps the most thought-provoking aspect of Sofia is that the political order responsible for constructing its monumental centre disappeared more than thirty-five years ago, while the buildings largely remain and continue to be used by the state. The former Communist Party headquarters has become part of democratic Bulgaria's parliamentary environment. Other buildings continue to house the government and the presidency.

The state has changed, but much of its physical expression has survived.

I find this an intriguing contradiction. Democracy rests on the principle that political authority ultimately derives from the citizens. But what happens when those same citizens continue to encounter architecture originally designed to express an entirely different relationship between the individual and the state? Does a building's meaning automatically change when the political system changes, or does something of the old regime's psychology remain embedded in the stone façades?

There is no simple answer. Many democracies occupy buildings originally constructed by kings, emperors or authoritarian regimes. A parliament does not become less democratic simply because it meets inside a monumental palace. Nor does a building with glass façades and welcoming entrances guarantee that the people working inside are open-minded or democratically accountable. Architecture can communicate an ideal without the institution necessarily living up to it.

But that does not mean the physical environment is irrelevant. Quite the opposite. It influences how we perceive institutions, what we expect from them and how close to or distant from power we feel.

There is another historical layer in Sofia that makes the question even more complicated. The communist centre emerged through the transformation and partial replacement of older urban environments. The new authorities wanted not only to establish their own symbols but also to reshape how earlier periods of history were represented in the city. Today, socialist architecture stands alongside rediscovered Roman remains and other fragments of Sofia's much older past.

Sofia is therefore more than a capital city. It is a kind of open archive of how successive authorities have attempted to determine what the city should say about itself.

And perhaps that is precisely why I believe these buildings deserve to be preserved and studied, even when their original messages are uncomfortable. Erasing the physical traces of history does not undo history. It may, however, make it more difficult to understand how earlier societies functioned and how political authorities attempted to influence their populations.

We Haven't Stopped Building Monuments – We've Just Changed Materials

What began as a passing thought in front of an enormous door in Sofia has led me to consider our own time. We tend to regard communist propaganda as something distant, almost exotic. We marvel at the gigantic statues, heroic mosaics and colossal buildings. Looking back, it is easy to recognise how carefully those regimes attempted to direct people's perception of reality.

But have we really abandoned the method?

Today, much of that monumental visual language has migrated from public space onto our screens. Technology companies present visions of future societies, artificial intelligence, autonomous transportation and entirely new ways of living. Political movements construct visual identities designed to generate belonging and emotion. Major corporations invest enormous resources in environments and experiences intended to make their brands appear important, almost indispensable parts of everyday life.

This is not the same as state propaganda under a dictatorship. The differences in political power, control and the freedom to challenge the message are fundamental. But the underlying mechanism is related: creating an image of reality that influences how people perceive themselves and the world around them.

The greatest difference may be that the old monuments were visible. They stood there in stone and concrete, impossible to mistake for anything other than human constructions. Their modern equivalents can be considerably harder to recognise. They exist in our information feeds, digital interfaces, algorithmic selections and endlessly repeated visions of the future. We carry them in our pockets and encounter them hundreds of times every day.

It is possible that modern people are less impressed by enormous buildings. But that hardly means we have become immune to those who successfully direct our experience of the world.

I will probably continue walking past those enormous government buildings in Sofia. And I will still be fascinated by their brutal grandeur, oversized doors and almost excessive determination to impress. Not because I admire the political order that built them, but because I believe they tell us something important about the relationship between the individual and power.

Once, a state invested enormous resources in creating a physical environment designed to convince its citizens of its greatness. Today, that state no longer exists in the same political form. But the buildings remain, and anyone passing them can still feel strangely small.

It is difficult to imagine a clearer illustration of how long a political message can survive through architecture.

And the next time I stand in front of one of those enormous doors, I probably won't be thinking only about how small the individual looks in comparison with the building.

I will be thinking about something else.

They built the doors so large that the state would appear powerful. But in the end, it was the people who opened the door to a different society.