I was in Sydney for work yesterday, and as I ate my breakfast from a small but busy cafe, I found myself thinking about this interesting arrangement of shapes, lines, and textures that I could spot just through a gate on the other side of the laneway. I found the scene very interesting, rich, full of story, and after several moments and a mouthful of bacon and eggs, I discovered why.
It was the architecture of the scene. There are at least six different layers of history here, measured purely in the type and texture of the bricks involved. Each was designed, created, placed here for a particular purpose, whether that be purely functional or also (maybe to a lesser extent) aesthetic.
Architecture is history with form.
Timothy Moss 
‘Architecture is history with form’ … nice!! I like your thinking. I also think I need to eat bacon and eggs if that’s the sorts of insights they bring. 🙂
High protein food is good for the brain, so they say…
Palimpsests again. Are you familiar with Walter Benjamin? It was in reading about him that I first learned this term. He wrote about architecture as well as philosophy, art and much more. I am waiting for a couple of his books from our local library right now.
Interesting! This time the palimpsest is subliminal on my part… and thanks for the link to Benjamin – I’m familiar with him in broad terms, but this is a good push to make that a more specific familiarity.
Thank you – as always.