Cities, on the other hand, are marked with specific architecture from specific dates, and this architecture, built by long-vanished others for their own uses, is the shell that we, like hermit crabs, climb into.

Cole, Teju. Known and Strange Things. A Conversation with Aleksandar Hemon, pg 86.

I’ve never read Steward Brand‘s book “How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They’re Built“, but it’s all I could think of after reading this passage.