Abstract: This article examines how layered architectural histories can be actively engaged through design rather than preserved as static artifacts. It explores how architectural provenance might support a more attentive cultivation of existing buildings and considers how provenance can act as a driver in the formation of larger-scale extensions within historic settings. An anecdote from the polarizing world of the Norwegian Arkitekturopprøret prompts an exploration of the palimpsestic character of a theater building in Oslo where accumulated layers, traces, and contradictions from across centuries are not treated as problems to be resolved but as qualities that might be embraced and cultivated in future projects of reuse and transformation. The old building's mercurial character serves, alongside built works by Kastler Skjeseth Architects, to investigate the potential of buildings to evolve over time. The paper looks at how to transform existing structures through surgical interventions that emerge from close encounters with vernacular architecture, and draw on its morphology, materiality, and public perception. Different in program and condition, these architectures share sensibilities shaped by memory, time, and circumstance—reflecting a broader shift in contemporary European architectural practice toward more situated forms of building.
Kastler et al. (2025) studied this question.