Aalto said, with regret, at the opening of a room he designed, which, having been the first piece played there a military march, the room was now irretrievably lost as a device for music.
The walls remain, the same way as musical instruments, intangible but certain memory of the beings who lived in, constructed and used. When a work is used as a stable, hospital or powder keg, for ever will keep a little ‘breeding, death and war.
Thus, when the walls of a school of architecture are imbued with a profound use, teaching and learning are altered irreversibly. And then almost everything, perhaps most important, comes from them. As by irradiation.
Then the walls stain those who approach architecture. It almost does not need to go in the classrooms, because there are ghosts who teach there and whisper hidden words that creep into the most annoying places, starting from the eyes and hands.
Among those walls lives then not only the memory of teachers called in every class, but every sleepless night, every design, every effort, every comment that has architecture as its center. This fantastic shadow that gives meaning to the walls themselves.