ABSTRACT
Unlike many other large ancient cities, London’s civic center has stayed in exactly the same location for hundreds of years, accreting in dense, shallow layers, dampened by ribbons of now buried rivers. Although largely invisible aboveground, many ruined layers subtly, yet sometimes very directly, shape our patterns of engagement. Even modern constructions often trace the streets and landscape of the past. When we engage the modern city, we are performing an imaginative unlayering and unwrapping, sensing this location as it has always been, where even the softest curve of a street may reflect the landscape of millennia ago.
