How do we use the past to read today? According to the doomsday clock, extinction has never been closer. Yet deep time, with its myths of origin, formation, and extinction, is rarely used to question our present.We will explore Swiss places of deep time, such as paleontological, geological, or natural sites, and study how their current uses are activated by different narratives of history.

We all live in different Switzerlands; what part does architecture play in this complexity? Through the e-periodicaplatform, Swiss journals online, the course aims to explore the Swiss media environment and to understand howit has instigated different ideas of architecture, cities, landscapes, and interiors that inform national ideas ofSwissness.

Images govern our understandings of reality, transcending their purposes, media, support, and going beyond disciplinary borders. It is only by scrutinizing and contextualizing them that we understand the fragility of ideas they bear and the fundamental role architecture plays in this narrative construction.