How can we understand legacy as space? We address this question through a non-representational approach to space by conceptualizing legacy as and through atmospheric space. We argue that the atmospheric spatialization of legacy is a tensional yet regulative mechanism that both structures and disrupts an inherited reality being re-lived in the present, generating multiple and contesting realities. We show how such tensional organizing of legacy is formed by and forms competing interactions between a staged past and a living present. Drawing on a historical case study with two rounds of archival data collection and 47 semi-structured interviews on a historically prestigious Victorian building, we bring forward three interconnected forms of such competing interaction, including atmospheric alignment with hope, misalignment as a catalyst for change, and (re)alignment with entrapment. The contribution is twofold. First, we extend the limited understanding of space in the study of legacy, which is largely one-dimensional considering space as a physical and static container. We show how the interactions between atmospheric space and legacy partake in the contesting actualization of legacy. Second, this study partakes in the broader conversations on the ‘atmospheric turn’ in management and organization studies, foregrounding the tensional in-betweenness of atmospheric space, in turn unveiling the danger of contagiousness of legacy.
