What is Cronocaos

This chapter questions the traditional approach to preservation as it was historically undertaken. It is based on the approach followed by Rem Koolhaas and his Office OMA-AMO, in the exhibition “Cronocaos,” at the 12th Edition of Venice Biennale (2010). The authors will show how globalization has had a homogenizing impact on the concept of preservation. There is an unequivocal need to find a new system to mediate between preservation and development. OMA proposes to focus on “what to erase” and not “what to keep,” avoiding pre-existing assumptions and working with a “tabula rasa beneath the thinning crust of our civilization.”