Impermanence and Architecture. Ideas, Concepts, Words (original) (raw)
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PERMANENCE IN ARCHITECTURE: CONTEXT AND TIME
International Journal of Architecture and Urban Studies, 2018
An expression of art or craft diminishes with changing philosophy over time, but an architectural expression tends to remain. The built form eventually becomes one of the very few representations of previous civilizations that have stood the test of time. Centuries old buildings have lasted, although they were not specifically designed for timelessness. The act of building is not a temporal one, each one is a representation of its time. The quality of remaining unchanged indefinitely or permanence in architecture can be achieved with the use of enduring construction material and sympathetic regard for the surroundings. Buildings outlive generations and as such need to be resourcefully designed to continue to be effective. A conscious use of the local materials, the local technical skills has allowed these buildings to harmonize with the context. Born of the earth, each of these speaks the language of the people and of the place. On the contrary, in Indian urban centers, a large quantum of the architectural expression today is ignorant of its place and time. There is a diminishing reverence to what the place demands and more attention to what we demand of it. This paper explores the connections between a building's context and time to its longevity. It argues that concentrated efforts made towards rootedness to a place and relevance to its time, will lead to significantly bolstering a building's perseverance. It also enquires into longevity through examples spanning different contexts and times. Significant examples of historic buildings of a place are discussed in comparison with contemporary examples of similar locations. Such a comparison will lead to an understanding of ways of adapting traditional knowledge to current needs and their appropriation to the time. The paper seeks to emphasize the importance of contextuality and close connect to time, in extending the life of a building.
On the experience of temporality: existential issues in the conservation of architectural places
Journal of Aesthetics and Phenomenology, 2016
In discussions of the conservation of culturally significant architecture, awareness about issues of temporality and its theoretical import has been approached from varied, partial, perspectives. These perspectives have usually focused on accounts of temporality that focus on the past and the present-and more rarely the future-without considering either the complete spectrum of human temporality or its ontological bases. This article addresses this shortcoming with a phenomenology of conservation grounded on the fundamental attitudes of cultivation and care. After a phenomenological and existentialist analysis of Cesare Brandi's thought-focusing on his paradigmatic Theory of Restoration-his attitude comes forth as a limited instance of the modern conservation attitude that is concerned exclusively with architecture as art. This attitude results in a limited temporal intentionality. Following Ingarden and Ricoeur, the existential approach is here applied to the deduced dimensions of the space and time of Dasein-in Heidegger's terms-outlining the grounding of conservation on an existential interpretation of the more fundamental notions of cultivation and care. This interpretation suggests a solution for the modern impasse with an existential account of both the artistic grounding of architecture and its characterisation as the place that temporally accompanies Dasein. Architecture thus emerges as a manifold being, constituting existentially the space for the authentic human being, whose temporal consciousness compels it to cultivate and care about that space, thus enriching the possible approaches to conservation as a collective endeavour.
Presentness of the Object, Language of Architecture, Parc-K-de La Villette
2015
This thesis explores the relationship between object and its subject in terms of the metaphysics of presence and “Presentness”. Architecture as a form of a language and “text”, as set of foundation that is generated through the presence of the object. Architecture Foundation that preserves and resist through its set of principles, these foundations are not just belongs to architecture but it's through the persistent of object of architecture that the foundations of culture are preserved and resist. Therefore Architecture by necessity needs to assume and maintain a form of a communication to renders the conscious of society. For this reason Object always strikes by the subject as a language, it became a tool to represents a layer of reality and preserving it. This thesis is the critique of such resistance of social and political aspect of that reality. The thesis will redesign and reframe “Parc de la Villette” project as a critique of such realities, a critique of resistance and eventually critique of itself. It poses a question to destabilize and dislocates the discourses of architectural projects. It becomes a platform to project, for a potential of an architectural project to come. The project Parc-K-de La villette is a reconstruction of the Parc. An archeological reconstruction based on the layer of the history. The project depends on pragmatic linkage between its autonomous object in fragmentation state. After lining up this catalog of autonomous independent object extracted and reframed from their past then introduce to their new metaphysical “ground”. Architecture here becomes a bridge between one special event and the next, their meaning is generated through a system of differences and it gave the different spaces between and inside these object the same conceptual equivalence to generate a space both on architectural and urban scale in their “ground”, a “Presentness”.
Importance of Temporary Architecture and Permanence as an Obsolete Notion
International journal of structural and civil engineering research, 2019
Permanence is one of the qualities that has been attributed to architecture since the early ages of human settlements for several reasons such as economical, religious or nationalistic motivations. However, the paradigm shift that accompanied modernism has changed the ways that humankind lives and produces; the phenomena of obsolescence has emerged and new economical approaches as well as daily practices have shifted to a short-termed perception of time and the pace of change has accelerated. Creative destruction has become the fundamental point of origin to the modern design and construction practices. Primarily investigating the meaning of permanenceabsolute and relative permanence-and the drivers of building permanent structures based on the value of architecture both theoretically and historically, this study aims to examine the obtrusive conflict between the modern transformation towards short-termism and the building culture that remained solid in terms of temporaryness. Initiations for discovering ways of building temporary structures or applying short-termed or reusable materials have great importance today, although many examples of temporary architecture may be seen throughout the history of humankind, for a more sustainable, mobile and humble architecture. The conclusion objective of this paper is to track the first modern responses to the interchangeable urban texture during the second half of the twentieth century and how the idea has evolved in time, arriving to the recent applications of temporary modals in the means of structure and material. It is crucial that architecture adapts to this relatively new conjuncture as building life spans are dramatically decreasing and natural resources are at critical levels and temporary structures may be the answer.
Architecture has always had an obsession with time. Architects from different places and generations have struggled to make buildings able to last for decades, or even centuries; permanence has traditionally been considered the most desirable architectural quality. Even if, throughout history, temporary interventions have played a key role in defining urban spaces, architects have often considered them a minority practice not deserving much attention. Things have changed in recent years. Increasingly, architects understand temporariness as a potential answer to some of the most pressing problems of contemporary cities. Being adaptive and quick to build, temporary interventions can help architecture bring life back to vacant lots; or provide vitality and dynamism to the most distinct urban situations; or restore a sense of home and urbanity in post-disaster camps. In 21st century architecture, temporary buildings have a special place, for their flexibility and for the formal / spatial possibilities they offer to architects: because of their characteristics, temporary buildings are often pure space, free from the constraints of function and time-fighting. The paper aims to analyze strategies and objectives of temporary interventions in the context of 21st century urban architecture, through case studies from the last two decades.
2016
Nowadays it is possible to see architects from all over the world struggling to achieve the most contemporary designs in their projects using the most advanced technologies available to capture the attention of the masses, their pairs, or just from a jury. But just take three steps away and try to compare this image with the perspective of history and suddenly the story seems to be much more usual that what one could think in a first place. In this essay, I will talk about why I think working with "the Built" is more about the extension of our own memory in constant evolution, rather than a stylistic construct between then and now, and why those relations are more strong and perdurable. Timeless one could say.
Forms of continuity in architectural space
2016
Starting from understanding the architectural space as one of many modes of continual urban space, the research focuses on the interpretation of concepts developed in order to describe the properties of the so-called cognitive architecture. In the last decade, guided by the issue of social effects of architecture, many investigations in the field of theory of architecture were conducted within the framework constituted from the philosophical elaborations of the notion of affect, mainly by Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Brian Massumi. In some proposals, the concept of cognitive architecture was established to describe the impact that the space occupied with new information and communication technologies exerts on the domains of intellect and mental disposition, coupled with the practices of every-day life. Cognitive architecture emerges as a consequence of the intertwinings of physical and mental processes in individuals’ bodies, as well as between them, that characterize social ...
1987
The man-made environment is mutually constitutive with socio-cultural life in it Apart from its physical and formal characteristics, every setting is characterized by an idiosyncratic process of development. Relating new architecture to an existing setting is a problem which reveals the fundamental issues concerning the interpretation of this setting and intervention in its development. As such, this problem concerns the development of architecture as a whole. Amid contemporary world-wide universalism, there is also a need for a sense of belonging to the environment we collectively live in, and for a lasting relationship with it. The current dilemma of conservation versus planning can find a satisfactory resolution or else, be considered as a false dilemma on the basis of a contextually concerned planning and a conservation philosophy which enhances contemporary development and can there¬ fore be considered as a form of it. Permanence and change are considered in this study as compl...
Architecture: from time of mind to time of nature
2020
Due sono le concezioni di tempo con cui desidero operare in questo articolo. La prima è il tempo umano, vale a dire il tempo del pensare, agire, immaginare e produrre. È il tempo della storia delle civiltà che si stratifica e accresce. È il tempo che si accumula spazialmente nelle città, in cui c' è uno strato sopra l'altro di civiltà storiche. È, inoltre, il tempo della memoria e del racconto storico, che sia storia della letteratura, dell'architettura, dell' economia, della scienza. La seconda concezione è il tempo della natura in cui non c' è accumulazione, bensì continuo fluire, trasformazione, sostituzione di tutto a tutto. È il tempo della nascita e della morte, quasi il tempo fosse un palcoscenico in cui le figure entrano ed escono. È infine il tempo del corpo, del nostro corpo, che nasce, cresce, decade e muore, lasciando posto ad altri corpi. Queste due temporalità confliggono. Ogni generazione umana, anzi ogni singola vita umana cerca un equilibrio in questo conflitto. Cerchiamo di dare una temporalità sensata e umana alla temporalità che gli eventi naturali ci concedono. Cerchiamo di immaginare e produrre cose che sviluppino, e se possibile migliorino, quanto abbiamo ereditato, per poi affidarlo a chi verrà dopo. La dinamica della cultura sopravvive alle singole vite. Le opere di Cézanne, Van Gogh, O'Keeffe, Bourgeois entrano nel racconto della storia della pittura e sopravvivono ai loro autori. Quando eleggiamo alcuni siti a patrimonio mondiale dell'umanità, li ordiniamo affinché possano raccontare il tempo del pensare e agire umani. Anche i siti naturali entrano a far parte del tempo umano, per il semplice fatto di
Temporality, flexibility, durability: A new attitude for architectural education?
2019
At the time of modernity, the perfect adequacy of the architectural object to its use was enough to meet its legitimacy. In the perspective of sustainable development, the architectural object becomes "environmental". Building product cannot be considered anymore, as regards form, as finite and determined or established. It has to integrate open thought in terms of resources management as well as usage or social practice mutations.