Interventions acadiennes: creating a sense of place and identity for the Acadians of Halifax

This thesis starts with the premise that architecture is a political act, and looks at the architecture of the institutions as the illustration of political, commercial, religious or cultural power. In some cases, institutions recall a form of oppression (either past or present) for a specific community, and they become violent landmarks. In this context, architecture can become a tool for oppressed communities to claim and appropriate oppressive institutions in order to come to terms with the situation and ultimately to create a sense of place and identity. This thesis uses the Acadian population of Halifax, Nova Scotia, to demonstrate this statement. A careful understanding of this particular community - its history, culture and relationship with the oppressive English-Canadian majority - is required in order to use this statement wisely and produce an appropriate piece of architecture. A certain amount of general rules can be extracted from this specific example in order to transform this statement into a methodology.