Conversation

Has there been any significant study of what you might call “architectural recoding” where buildings are repurposed in a new way for a new political-cultural environment with little to no physical modification or aging? Like Hagia Sofia: church —> mosque —> museum?
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Mansions are my use case. They signify feudalism as a default political implied context, but clearly mansions (unlike fortresses or palaces, which are adjacent) “mean” different things in different eras, but also clearly have a material continuity as an idea.
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Mansions are free-standing opulent (relative to the times) dwellings with significant private physical control of immediate context, with a set-back boundary, typically non-shared, and enough going on to constitute at least a tiny local economy. But their political meaning drifts
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The research group "Habitar" at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya did an exhaustive study of all the buildings that went through adaptive reuse in Barcelona. There are numerous examples that fit you description, I can send you the names if you are interested.