“Architects – we who change the world – have been oblivious or hostile to the manifestations of preservation,” said Rem Koolhaas at the opening of his manifesto-exhibition ‘Cronocaos’ (chronicles of chaos) at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale, where he presented intriguingly misplaced, juxtaposed, out of context, and conflicting facts and thoughts on preservation.

His exhibit provoked a new discourse on the topic by identifying two opposing forces: while increasing amounts of historically ‘valuable’ territories become off-limits for new development, other layers of more recent architecture which are deemed ‘ordinary’ are eradicated. The architect has spoken: “As the scale and importance of preservation escalates, the absence of a theory becomes dangerous… The current moment has almost no idea how to negotiate the coexistence of radical change and radical stasis.”