Here is a dilemma: what if you were asked to come up with a design for a significant historic exhibition, one that is politically, culturally, and spiritually significant (and sensitive?) building... How can you provide an effective design, one that is both sensitive to the history of a building and a culture, and yet is refreshing an innovative? History is of course constructed... But at the same time, what is wrong with this? Is there still room for representation of the heroic, or at least moral virtue in contemporary avant garde design? Or is the only way to be modern in designing for historic content to focus simply on the space that houses artifacts, to provide a neutral ground that can be admired for its craft, perhaps separating itself from the artifact completely, drawing a fine line between the new and the old?

The fact is, history is a narrative. This is unavoidable. Representation of history-- either in a bulding or in an exhibition-- is always constructed. It is more about the present than it is about the past. But it is proclaiming something about people now... Perhaps their desires and their dreams. Who am I, as a designer, to innovate here? It seems that an architects self expression here is not really a priority... Perhaps creativity needs to be directed, and the architect should be a servant of the people rather than a experimentor... Because what right does the designer have to upheave the dreams of others, to tell them how they should redefine their personal reality? Design that is historically sensitive can be creative... But it is a more challenging creativity... One that builds on and fertilizes the dreams of people-- where those dreams are "moral"-- rather than throwing those dreams out the window...