In the seventeenth century, when Rome experienced a dramatic increase in population and a subsequent shortage of housing, the needy sought shelter in the ruins of the ancient theatre of Marcellus. Its low vaults and long arched galleries that once accommodated Roman audiences and gladiator fights, were thought suitable for housing. Gradually small houses appeared on its rusticated facade, and before long, the entire arena was transformed into a housing complex. Ancient theatres at Nimes and Arles also accepted similar changes. Yet, at each of these places the nature of the transformation did not in any was affect the essential qualities of the original building. Today when you walk through the monument to Marcellus, you sense both the amphitheater and the house.
 
Do ruined architectural fragments offer a possibility of reuse? Can history be used in new ways? In India, as in Italy, simultaneous ruined stratifications exist on the same site. But their physical presence need not be viewed solely in preservation terms. Through recollection and interpretation memory can be made to traverse different roads through the same past, and so perhaps to a different future.