The "who knows what it does?" collection

There's an image from I think Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone of Dumbledore's office hosting this collection of mysterious objects. I imagine this assortment of odd clockwork and objects that make no sense scattered all around. There's no telling what anything does. Does even the owner know what they do? Anyway, I like the aesthetic of this collection.

What is it about that aesthetic that's interesting? It reminds me of a book I haven't read about monks in a post-nuclear-apocalypse world that preserve circuit diagrams in illuminated manuscripts—A Canticle for Leibowitz.

You've got this collection of complicated doodads that nobody understands, but each of this someone made for a particular purpose. The owner has generously made this space for them in their life and cared for them so that maybe someday they'll find their proper use again. They trust the creators to have made them for something. Maybe that proper use won't ever come up again in the owner's lifetime, but they make sure the objects move forward so the objects are an option. I find that charming.