I mentioned in the last post how we truly experience architecture only in situ. Architecture is a specific three dimensional object -- in a specific place -- that is too large to be perceived all at once. One needs to move through it, see it, feel it, smell it, hear it.
Experiencing architecture in this way, however, is still the easiest way.
The architectural object is a semi-permanent thing placed in the world, one that we experience from without as well as within over potentially many occasions. Though architecture is phenomenological, something that is experienced via the senses in a direct way, any one experience is not sufficient for a robust interpretation. Architecture is temporal in that the senses experience architecture differently at different times.
I think there are basically four ways that a building is experienced temporally.
Diurnal. The first is diurnally, or over the course of a day. Most architects understand this type of temporality well, as it is drilled into us from the beginning of our education primarily as an exercise in how to modulate the sun. This can lead to all sorts of interesting architectural expressions. It can also lead to some interesting thermal planning, by realizing how different spaces are heated and then cooled across a 24 hour period. To do either well, understanding sun angles and how light shines in various spaces throughout the day is key. One look at the recent controversy regarding glare at the Nasher Gallery in Dallas by Renzo Piano illustrates how even the most sensitive planning for diurnal temporality can be subverted when sun angles no longer align with our expectations.
To put it more directly, this means that an architectural object is experienced both internally and externally differently at different points of the day. The art installation at Chinati in Marfa by Donald Judd artfully explores this issue, by placing concrete boxes of different configurations at different angles and different adjacencies. This is an art exhibit that demands visits at different times. Experienced once, it cannot be assumed that you have experienced the art similarly to another observer.
Seasonal. As much as we think that we can experience a building with any one visit, it is important to realize that we must visit it several times to begin to understand it seasonally. This is more than just understanding how sun angles vary across seasons. The world itself is different across seasons, and we as sensory receptors also differ across seasons. In my last post I discussed at length St Petri in Sweden by Sigurd Lewerentz. I visited it every day, for the whole day, for a month. But that month was in the summer. As well as I know this building, I have not experienced it for instance in the winter, where I imagine its thermal qualities are quite different and hard, where I might see the snow contrasted against the ashen brown brick the color of tree trunks, and where I dream of hollow echoes even more muted by the blanket of silence outside. Further, the day is exceptionally long in the summer, with only a few hours of night, where the opposite is true in the winter. Would I be of a more contemplative mindset in the winter? If I get there, I might know for sure, but until then this is all speculation in my mind. Of one thing I am certain, however, is that it will not be the same place.
Celestial or Epochal. This tends to be the province of art or religion, but places such as Stonehenge or James Turrell's massive Roden Crater project in Arizona interact temporally in ways that mark itself as a place within the universe by marking, acknowledging, or celebrating a specific place in time. In our current day, and indeed most everyday architecture, this desire has been lost or can even seem gimmicky. It is interesting to speculate why -- perhaps we no longer feel so alone in the world, perhaps we feel too powerful, perhaps we are too familiar with the heavens or at least find them less mysterious or dangerous. Still, it can be worthwhile to note that we as beings need to be reminded of our place in everything, and that this is a viable way to bring time into architecture.
Aging. Another type of temporality arises from the aging process as a whole, the change in perception that happens from considering the same thing as a shiny, new object to something with weathering, patina, or even rot on it. Architects understand this well to a certain degree for sure. We know, for instance , that weathering steel will rust and effect the materials around it, or copper will change its hue, or wood will decompose and fade with sunlight. But even knowing this, these events can happen in unforeseen ways.
More importantly, materials can change not just from the elements but with use, as in stone steps that wear down over time, wood floors that bear the tracks of many footprints, or brass door handles that remain forever buffed and shiny.
These aspects of aging, discussed magnificently in On Weathering by Mohsen Mostafavi and David Leatherbarrow, is only part of what I mean. Stewart Brand, in his book How Buildings Learn, investigates the life of a building beyond its original use. Certain architects, such as John Soane and Louis Kahn, even envisioned their buildings as ruins, to see how they might feel past the end of their life. Structures such as the barns of the Midwest or the stone huts in the Graubunden of Switzerland are much different things at the beginning of their life than at their end. The landscape is indeed greatly enhanced by these objects at the end of their existence, showing the tracks of a life lived as does Billie Holiday's cracked voice in Lady in Satin.
For both architects and experiencers of architecture, this list is almost hierarchical. We understand the diurnal most of all, and we respond to it quite regularly in both our architectural expression and our awareness of sustainability. Seasonal aspects are more subtle. We don't get to experience seasonality unless we visit the architecture multiple times, which happens most readily when we live with it. This type of temporality demands much of an architect too, requiring sufficient experience with a place to enable these seasonal aspects to be captured or enhanced. Ironically, the celestial or epochal has seemed to have lost much relevance as we have grown ever more unaware of what, exactly, this universe is. And the wonderful effects of experience and the aging process are constantly at risk in our ceaseless desire for the new, and in our desire to sum up the worth of a building at its inception in all its newness.
Almost all architecture I love has existed for some time, and some, like the Pantheon -- which made me gasp when I first encountered it -- for a very, very long time. Things become richer with time, and indeed it takes time to allow them to become richer. It takes time for a person to grow, too. I am not the same person as I was as a child, I am not even the same person I was five years ago. As I change, the things I live with take on different meanings for me, and my appreciation for them changes. Further, time is the most expensive ingredient around; it can't be bought, it has to be earned, and we won't see any productivity enhancements. This is one of the key reasons why existing architecture of merit should never be easily destroyed.