Migena Molla

Chronoscape, my interior design plan, is a journey through time and an amalgamation of historical remnants, contemporary reality, and potential futures. Sited in Roosevelt Island, New York, Chronoscape honors the past as it reaches toward the future through creative architectural repurposing and restoration.

Nothing in life is permanent. Everything is in a constant state of change, including buildings. But buildings need our help to be transformed into different configurations that serve humanity while withstanding the natural forces acting on them. Buildings can be repurposed when their life cycle comes to an end, a process that starts a new cycle, but they always hold a layer of memory and vestiges of their origins. They remain sources of inspiration, and in retaining their roots, they preserve part of their identity for future generations.

Historical ruins record traces of a past that has not quite disappeared, messages from a time no longer accessible to us. They embody the effects of the passage of time and represent a setting where the past and the present meet and the living and the inanimate come together. They help us step over the boundaries of everyday life, a process necessary to creating something new and living harmoniously with what is left from the past. At the same time, ruins safeguard the past and celebrate its value. Ruins have the potential to connect humans to history and cultural memory. They are places where time stands still; they bring moments of stillness into our hectic lives. 

Chronoscape National Park and Museum is a place whose identity is informed by the past, carried into the present, and brought forward into the future in a new form that can serve humanity and its needs—while preserving and celebrating historical features and values.