Symbolism can cut both ways, even in advertising, where the standards need not of course necessarily be quite as high as elsewhere. It starts, at any rate, at one and the same time in Budapest, in Berlin, not to mention in London, Prague, and Rome. Even the Netherlands, Finland, as well as Schloss Neuschwanstein seem to be affected. (Strangely that Bavarian master politician Horst Seehofer has not already banged his fist on the table.) Evidently a specter is once again afoot, in Europe at least.

But no, it’s not the return of Communism that we face, but a kind of connection or centralization syndrome, one that involves a dimming of our sense of reality and seems to typically crop up among telco corporations. And yes, it also involves architecture. Which is meant to stand here not just symbolically or allegorically for all those people who communicate with one another (and are meant to do so using Telekom services). But also for a dubious trend, one that preferentially pops up in the virtual domain. One that succeeds in shifting and melting even the most solid and firm things into thin air.

“We connect people in Europe” we hear at the end of the TV commercial broadcast in recent months. If any of you find it funny or even ironic, then we immediately take everything back, even if nothing would indicate this to be the case, going by the irritated look on the face of the people who have just lost the Brandenburg Gate, Big Ben, or the Colloseum ... – despite life being all beautiful sunshine, of course. And all this happens simply so that a couple can meet on a bridge with a massive “T” pier in the midst of seething waters in a capital that is as boring as it is virtual. Europe shrinks, and the admen’s imagination knows no bounds, only the most wondrous of projections. What a noble task connecting people is. But please at least leave the buildings where they are. And we won’t even mention roaming fees and other realities.