mortar and bricks
Today I visited the Waag Society, which is a research and production institution that focuses on the implications and uses of new media in education, culture, and the public domain. The directors of the Waag Society shared some of their past and current projects with us, and in turn, we told them about our current projects.
The Waag, the building in Nieuwmarkt where the Waag Society has their workspace, is the oldest non-religious building in Amsterdam. The first stone was laid in 1488. This is the oldest building that I have ever stood in. The building felt so old that I didn’t dare touch its walls or walk too quickly on its floors. The space felt sacred and special, and I felt that if I become too comfortable inside I wouldn’t show the building its due respect.
Initially I struggled with the idea that the Waag Society, one of the most forward-thinking and modern institutions in Amsterdam, makes its home in one of the oldest buildings in Amsterdam. Shouldn’t we house museums in hisorical buildings, not new media societies ? I stood on the second floor looking across the rooftops and thought about this idea. Eventually I decided that the uses of buildings naturally change and evolve over the years. If the Waag were a museum now, the building would be deprived of present culture and instead would only contain the past. Although I do believe that it is important to preserve the past in a way that is accessible to the public, present culture such as new media is equally as important as past culture such as a Rembrant painting. Since neither the past nor the present is more important, as long as there exist some places that preserve the past and others that create the present, I see nothing wrong with housing the Waag Society in the Waag.
Another thought: Regardless of whether a museum or a new media institution resides in an old building, both institutions remake the building into something present. The only way to truly let a building live in the past would be to let it naturally decay until all that was left was a sunken pile of bricks and mortar.