There were various historical precedents for the reuse of decolonized architecture. These depended generally on the location, period, and process of decolonization. Evacuated colonial architecture was alternately understood as symbols for racist ideologies, as physical entities embodying power relations, as military weapons or ammunitions, as the site and instruments of a crime and even as haunted places. At other situations they were seen as economic resources, bargaining chips, and even as “piles of bricks,” the accumulation of the materials composing them.
Three general approaches in dealing with evacuated colonial architecture could be discerned: destruction, re-occupation, and subversion. These approaches were sometimes used simultaneously.