<p>We translate the operations of polarization and depolarization from monomial ideals in a polynomial ring to abstract simplicial complexes. As a result, we explicitly describe the relation between the Koszul simplicial complex of a monomial ideal and that of its polarization. Using the simplicial translation of depolarization we propose a way to reduce a simplicial complex to a smaller one with the same homology, and, in fact, the same strong homotopy type. This type of reduction, that can be interpreted as non-elementary collapse, can be used as a pre-process step for algorithms on simplicial complexes. We apply this methodology to the efficient computation of the Alexander dual of abstract simplicial complexes.</p>