History as an Operative Device – Confronting the Past through Design

Architectural education has relegated history to the non-design role it currently occupies. This, perhaps, initially happened by mere happenstance, but it was surely prolonged by the propagation of feckless pedagogy. However, an epistemological break from the traditional formmaking processes of site and program analysis—one that hypothesizes historical events as operative devices— will elevate history to a having a design role. This article examines how history transforms and complements adaptive reuse techniques and is demonstrated by the example of the decommissioned U.S. Embassy to Britain in Grosvenor Square, designed by Eero Saarinen between 1956 and 1960.