Time's Imprint on Memory of Place

Presently, those who design the built environment most often seem to strive for an architectural appearance that is not intended to be altered by effects of climate or use throughout time. In reality however, it has always been a precondition that everything built will decay and alter over time. Not surprisingly, the current tendency of celebrating permanence in architectural appearance has not only been fueled by modernism or consumerist neoliberal trends that does not value history. The aspiration for permanence has also influenced directions within the field of conservation and preservation of the built environment. Since the early preservationists such as Ruskin and Le Duc introduced their concepts of how to approach and define cultural heritage and hence, founded modern conservation the field has to a large extend been occupied with prolonging, upholding, and even attempting to bring back buildings to an ideal physical state that may not even have existed at any point within the building’s lifespan.

Despite this, the concept of time, or at least aspects of time, as a contributing factor within architecture is not entirely new. For instance, in the romantic period fragmentation and as a consequence, disruption of time, ruins were ascribed to have the ability of evoking emotional feelings. This is rendered visible in both literature as well as in the arts and architecture of the time. The fragmented writings of the period resemble the broken entities of the physical ruin.
In other words, the gap between the fragments stimulated individual interpretations of what might have connected them in the past and formed personally informed narratives from which new entities could emerge. [The unfinished matter]