Future of the Past: Toronto Urban Palimpsest

Palimpsest [noun]

A manuscript or piece of writing material on which later writing has been superimposed on effaced earlier writing.

Oxford English Dictionary 2014

Introduction 

Rem Koolhaas discusses how “we discovered that… a large part of the world’s surface is under a particular regime of preservation and they cannot be changed… that made us suddenly aware that the world is now divided into areas that change extremely quickly and areas that cannot change.”

Source:

Areas that cannot change are cities, where half of the world population is living in urban centres. Preservation then takes over heritage or significance sites that deems valuable. The value of the artefact, either physical or not, must be assess. Two questions must be asked, what is the value of the artefact? And who is it valuable too?

Heritage preservation and adaptive reuse traditionally demands of us that we strip away time, revealing the layers of palimpsest, to restore details, elements and/or structure to its original appearance, negating the strata of time so often so well revealed in a single wall. And we do it sometimes as a matter of taste, time indeed clashing with time until one era’s tastes and preferences win out.

“By finding ways to preserve these kinds of buildings, not as museum pieces but as palimpsests themselves, will add new layers of meaning and memory to the cities experience.”

Source: Nathaniel Popkin, Hidden City Philadelphia  Hidden City Philadelphia

Thesis Statement
The architecture of cities all over the world is constructed through the removal and superimposition of buildings that create successive layers of palimpsest, which contributes to the loss of sense of place. New architectural proposals are divorced from the cultural and physical palimpsest that exists, disengaging from the city. Architecture has the potential to mediate the relationship between the layers of palimpsest that exist, uncovering a narrative of memories that people can experience within a place; by understanding how memories are constructed within architectural spaces.

Purpose

The architecture of cities all over the world is constructed through the removal and superimposition of buildings that create successive layers of palimpsest, which contributes to the loss of sense of place.

Position
Current preservation and adaptive reuse strategies have been unsuccessful in revealing the cultural and physical palimpsest that exists within a city, disengaging it from the city’s sense of place and collective memory/identity.