Discover reports on the growing field of “scent researchers” who are attempting to bring back smells that have long since gone away, and to record the smells we’ve got around today that might go extinct as well:
“When we think about what aspects of culture we consider legacy, we think in very material terms,” says Cecilia Bembibre, a researcher with University College London’s Institute for Sustainable Heritage. “We don’t think about leaving a smell for future generations.” Even in the context of immaterial culture, it’s often forgotten. In 2003 UNESCO established guidelines for “the safeguarding of the intangible cultural heritage.” The guidelines encompass performing arts, oral traditions and festivals, but make no mention of smell.
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Bembibre has characterized the scents of everything from furniture wax to snuff boxes, and the optimal technique varies from case to case. At this early stage in the field’s development, she says, “we’re exploring.” But all the different approaches serve one mission: “The question is, ‘How can we experience a scent authentically once the source has disappeared?’ ” she says. “When the library is no longer there, what is an effective way to evoke the library for the nose?”
One method is called solid-phase microextraction. A few years ago, at St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, Bembibre exposed a sensor to the air wafting around the church’s collection of deteriorating leather-bound books from centuries past. The sensor captured the compounds that make up that cherished odor. Back in the lab, a gas chromatography-mass spectrometry machine separated all the compounds, which could then be recorded and named, resulting in an aromatic recipe of sorts.
Another option begins from the human perspective. Out of curiosity, Bembibre wanted to build the ancient-book scent from scratch, rather than working backward from its chemical constituents. She enlisted perfumist Sarah McCartney to take a whiff of some yellowed pages, and then concoct her own spin on essence-of-library. They then asked a group of people which sample seemed more accurate, the lab’s reconstruction or McCartney’s interpretation. Remarkably, the consensus was split.
The experiment shows that personal input is crucial, too.
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With tangible heritage — especially buildings and landscapes — the criteria for preservation are fairly well-defined: If it has aesthetic or historical significance, it’s a candidate. Most everyone can see the wisdom in tending Claude Monet’s gardens and not bulldozing the Acropolis. But in the olfactory domain, “we don’t have anything like that,” Bembibre says. “We are developing these criteria for considering a smell culturally important.”