Many old Australian buildings in our cities sit quiet and empty, hidden away from view behind advertising billboards and mass-produced chain clothing outlets. Obsolete, too old, their stories forgotten, they are no longer useful. Sometimes their facades are all that remains.<\/p>\n
Old buildings have a special way of making us feel connected, giving us glimpses of the past and allowing us to hear the whispers in their walls. Not merely bricks and mortar, but keepers of memories of from bygone times.<\/p>\n
I could dote on this forever. I can\u2019t help but feel this way, having spent the past few years restoring a historic building in a little village in the French Pyr\u00e9n\u00e9es. I can\u2019t be sure why its 800 years of history makes me feel grounded and connected, but nevertheless it feels real and tangible. It\u2019s impossible to grasp a worn oversized iron key and turn the lock of large, heavy set entrance gates and not imagine how many times this has been done the exact same way over the centuries, as if crossing a threshold into a realm where time does not exist \u2013 an untranslatable connection between what has been and what is now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"