The Atlas as a model for Adaptive Reuse

Abstract

The presentation argues that there is a surplus in past interiors, an excess of sense related to reverence and community (as people listen and meet, men and women are next to each other), even frivolity (almost all 17th century Dutch interiors show dogs and children playing in the Church). Cultivating an empathy towards the other in a space of reverence and open for unexpected encounters; this can be said of the plates of Warburg’s Mnemosyne and of the adaptable interior. As a figure of history, the atlas is relevant for design and its history because it raises a fundamental question: will there be a public space for experimentation and imagination in the 21st century?