Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Time
Tim Makower
136
We dwell in time as much as in space, and architecture mediates equally our relationship with
this mysterious dimension, giving it its human measure.
Juhani Pallasmaa, Inhabiting Time, see pp 5059
The desire to catch the moment and to leave something behind us is part of the creative process.
It results in products of creativity; objects that are outside of ourselves, and that to some extent
have a life of their own. A piece of architecture is different from a tune, a poem or a painting in
that it generally arises from the needs of third parties a living client with a living brief. This is a
significant part of its temporal dimension; the push and pull of design and construction, and the
hard realities of a design team working in a competitive environment finding time. Indeed, it is easy
to disagree with Friedrich von Schellings mantra that Architecture is frozen music1 because frozen
is something it never is.
Central Business
District,
West Bay,
Doha,
Qatar,
2012
Dohas West Bay is a good
example of fast urbanism;
like fast food it seems to lack
substance. But unlike food, as
a piece of city, it can continue
to mature from generation to
generation, and improve with
age, even though its individual
buildings alienate themselves
from their context in terms of
culture and climate.
The pursuit of time surfaces in this issue in two themes that run between the essays: firstly the
dynamic nature of architecture; and secondly the continual overlap between the process and product
of design as a factor, and a vector, of time. It can be argued that the creative process stems from
the desire (the need) to externalise what is within us, and thereby to a greater or lesser degree, to
defy time; to challenge mortality even. Time expands and contracts and, like the flow of traffic on a
highway it accelerates and decelerates, at least in our perception. Sometimes, when empty, a day can
seem to drag. When full, a week can feel like a day in the present, and a month when looking back.
The aim of this Counterpoint, Finding Time, in contrast to what has already been written, is
to examine three aspects of our experience of time in cities that are fundamentally part of our
perception of the urban environment and, for those who are involved in architecture or urban
design, should inform our thoughts and actions as designers: firstly newness, speed and finance;
secondly the patina of age; and thirdly the temporary and ephemeral stuff of cities.
137
138
Argent,
Allies and Morrison and Porphyrios,
Kings Cross Masterplan,
London,
due for completion 2020
above: The Kings Cross urban regeneration masterplan was designed
specifically to be able to go fast or slow in response to the property
market without jeopardising its commercial success. The flexibility of
most of the northern blocks (right-hand side of the model) to be built
over time as either residential or office space was also an essential part
of its responsive financial model.
Makower Architects,
Zones 15 and 16,
Al Ghanem-Jadeeda Development Framework,
Doha,
Qatar,
2015
The heritage-led regeneration framework for this rundown old neighbourhood in central Doha proposes
a strategy for patchwork repair of an established
streetscape. Its historical fabric is retained, renewed,
augmented and enriched with a combination of new and
old structures, at both large and small scales.
139
Breathe Deeply
Regent Street,
London,
2015
A street that is closed to traffic
for only four days a year takes on
a new dimension in the memory
of those who experience it in its
pedestrian-only state, whereby a
new sense of belonging is created.
The change is as dramatic in the
life of the city as it would be if
a street were roofed over and
became a forum or an agora, even
if just for a moment.
alive with change and bristling with the cacophony of competing businesses,
and the street that is pedestrianised once a month in the summer; these
things are like the city breathing.
It is easy to think of architecture as a process of defining things with
a physical fabric, but often it is better to blur the boundaries between
the designed and un-designed, and treat the design of buildings as a
beginning rather than an end. As Guest-Editor Karen A Franck states in her
introduction to this issue: Embracing time in architecture means embracing
change.4
The seasonal quality of a city and the changing life-patterns of buildings
underpin and oversail their forms, their spaces and their surfaces, becoming
over time as much part of their nature as the bricks, concrete or glass from
which they are made.
Embracing
time in
architecture
means
embracing
change.
Karen Frank
Notes
1. Friedrich von Schelling, Die Weltalter,
181115 (The Ages of the World), trans
Frederick de Wolfe Bolman, Jr, Columbia
University Press (New York), 1967, p 163.
2. Kevin Lynch, The Image of the City,
MIT Press (Cambridge, MA and London),
1960, p 116.
3. Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of
Great American Cities, Random House
(New York), 1961, p 187.
4. Karen A Franck, Designing with Time in
Mind, see pp 817 of this issue.
5. Juhani Pallasmaa, Inhabiting Time, see
pp 5059 of this issue.
141