Working memory: An evaluation of the past in the design process

Focused on the relationship between architecture, history and archaeology, this paper examines meaningful cases in which the past has exerted its influence on the present, bringing to the fore the notion of working memory: an operative device aimed at selecting some parts of historical experience to be reused. All of the historical phenomena here considered show that the past, when not mummified, can live again. So, a question arises: can such a condition be experienced nowadays in the design process? The answer is yes, but only if the past, far from being imitated or celebrated, is evoked and revisited; and, above all, given new shared meanings.