This issue of Joelho – Journal of Architectural Culture is devoted to the presence of the past in architecture. The point of departure is the nature of memory and its relation with experiences of ambiences or atmospheres (Luís António Umbelino), which contrasts with the self-reflexive nature of the modernist grid and its antinarrative and antihistorical condition (Wouter Van Acker).

This attempt to generate or recreate ambiences is at the basis of Alvar Aalto’s attempt to activate a cultural memory in the design of civic centres (Aino Niskanen). The central problem is the shift from the avant-garde conceptual exploration of memory referents to analogical processes.

This is a shift initiated by the modernist figures themselves, as attested by Le Corbusier’s design for the Ronchamp chapel (Paulo Providência), even if history remained anchored to a formal approach initiated by the modernist visual culture, as Vincent Scully’s historical approach shows (Eeva-Liisa Pelkonen).

Methodological questions are also raised in this issue. They range from Scarpa’s integration of memory of building processes in the design process itself (Federica Goffi) to the interpretative exercises of mental construct and simulation involved in Álvaro Siza’s visual culture and his unconscious integration of referents in the making through an instinctual procedure of drawing.