ABSTRACT
Throughout history, places, buildings and situations have been reused and adapted: they can survive as cultures and civilisations change. The already built provides a direct link with the past; it is a connection with the very building bricks of our society. The existing tells the tale or story of how a particular culture evolved. A simple building may depict a certain moment in time; it may relate the particular sensibility of a specific era. A more complex structure may have a much more elaborate story to tell. Jorge Silvetti describes this direct link with the past as part of our ‘fundamental urban condition’. He links the physical survival of particular elements of the city with the spiritual survival of our civilisation, and it is this visibility and durability of the physical man-made environment that are testimonies to the societies that produced them.
