Architecture builds upon history. Even the avant-gardist creed to "make it new" still assumes a past. It is impossible to imagine novelty without an awareness of what existed before. This is even more true for the reuse and appropriation of existing structures, where designers take a stance relative to the past. In their transformation projects the office of diederendirrix architects retell stories of buildings and sites - by paraphrasing part of the story, by recasting central actors, by making architecture speak in other words. In so doing, they make it anew.