Rodolfo Machado - Old buildings as palimpsest

"Remodelling is a process of providing a balance between the past and the future. In the process of remodelling the past takes on a greater significance because it, itself, is the material to be altered and reshaped. The past provides the already written, the marked ‘canvas’ on which each successive remodelling will find its own place. Thus the past becomes a ‘package of sense’ of built up meaning to be accepted (maintained), transformed or suppressed (refused)."  (Machado, 1976, p. 27).

"When the alterations in the building’s content are of such a type that the buildings original or latest function is changed; then the building is refunctionalized, a different story is born, a new plot is composed out of the old words, a new interpretation has taken place" (Machado, 1976, p. 27).