Abstract submission: December 13th, 2019
Paper submission: February 28th, 2020
The term “time” is a word of everyday use to which we attribute many meanings. Time can indicate a chronological dimension between past, present and future, an epoch or a period, a phase of action, as well as in the Italian language meteorological conditions and their variations. In philosophical and scientific thought the term “time” is related to the becoming or to the changeless and homogenous time according to Galileo Galilei and Isaac Newton. Moreover, it can be seen as change in perceptions, existential states or the memory of a primitive condition. As stated by the essayist physicist and writer Carlo Rovelli (2017), time «is perhaps the greatest mystery». The contemporary age stimulates reflections on the comparison between linear views of time, typical of modernity and the industrial age, and measures of a different type such as the succession of generations, or the “timeless” phenomena of quantum physics, where only relationships count. Time in its different meanings constitutes a fundamental factor of forecasting, of the future and, therefore, of the project. To judge Architecture, argued Giò Ponti (1957), «is necessary to add time to the elements». On the other hand, Rafael Moneo (1999) reminds that «the work of architecture transcends the architect, it goes beyond the instant in which its construction takes place». Thus, in the powerful affirmation of an oxymoron, time becomes the main immaterial material of architecture. The cities, according to Lewis Mumford (1999), «are a product of time. They are the molds in which the lives of people have cooled down and solidified». An important domain takes shape, contemporary architectural production deals with dialectically considering the assumption, from the initial phases of the design process, of strategies inspired by permanence and options oriented towards temporariness. The first is linked to the traditional concept of a durable building and the second that assumes it as a product of limited and programmable duration, with rapid obsolescence, ephemeral, of consumption. Starting from these premises, TECHNE 20 intends to collect research and design experimentation contributions, as well as essays and critical reflections, useful in defining, also in relation to other scientific fields, the scenario within which take place today the debate about the very close link between time and architecture.
