In this think piece I propose the temporal dimension as a paradigm shift, a nudge towards a contemporary architecture that is capable of reflecting our context and the nuances of our identity. “Our” in this piece, refers to all of us who belong to a context where there has been a disruption of continuity in “our” architecture that has distanced us from the authorship of “our” built environment. At some point in our history there was a discontinuity of our traditions and culture. There was an imposition of foreignness that disconnected and dissociated us from our ways of space making.
This piece proposes a temporal repair, a way of looking back and tracing where the damage has been done in order to start the process of healing. We start from a concept established by the Canadian sociologist Harold Innis, who wrote within the field of communication media about how societies tend to be either space biased or time biased.
Space biased society dominates the present. Space bias is characterized by ubiquity, by technology that can spread information instantaneously and far. Contemporary space biased media trends, it is ephemeral and reaches a wide audience. These societies tend to favour abstract thought, they facilitate rapid change, consumerism, and secularism. In architecture this has been evident in the modern movement that emerged as a conceptual pursuit for the universal, an aesthetic that could be applicable anywhere. Its purpose was to break away from the revivalist cycle that had griped European countries.
It represented a pivotal moment in the architectural ideology of the west as there was a transition from imitating past periods to a more conceptual architectural approach. This new perspective aimed to express the contemporary spirit (zeitgeist) through innovative forms and spatial arrangements. Institutions like the Bauhaus school played a crucial role in fostering a universal way of thinking that had the ambition of transcending history, culture, and context, setting it apart from previous architectural movements.
Countries such as India that had been under colonial rule, adopted the modern movement as a way to mark a new era. Regardless, the ambition and ubiquity of space bias made possible by the technological break through of the industrial revolution superseded any political changes. Space bias requires an absolute power and absolute authority. It reflects a world governed by self-sustaining systems born out of imperial and colonial feats.
Space biased architectural infrastructure manifests as unwalkable car centred cities, highways, billboards, uniformity, the ostentatious and orthogonal city, and town planning. It is evident in the humourless façade of a high rise building with its replicas lined up organised in perfect sequence along a road that runs indefinitely. It is a universal that is anything but organic, it is the exercise of power and influence, a neglect of the local. It is an architecture dictated by the machinations of systems and technologies beyond the human scale, disconnected from the intimate and the personal.
Spatial bias is also the annihilation of time. In the field of communications, it perpetuates a now-ness, an immediacy. This warping has led to a fragmented temporal order. Space has been shrinking considerably since the 19th Century from the accessibility the railway provided across geographies, to aeroplanes, to the internet. The spatial and temporal gap has been reducing.
Alternatively, time-based societies typically refer to communities that are rural or existed in pre-industrial or pre-colonial contexts. In these societies, the narratives of their past and traditions were conveyed through the practice of oral storytelling and integrated into their material culture. This form of communication is primarily localized and not readily disseminated, but it is centred on the enduring preservation and transmission of knowledge over generations. The historical accounts and wisdom of their ancestors and elders are critical within the knowledge framework of the community. Time-based societies tend to prioritize community cohesion and uphold traditional values.
In time biased societies, time is of great significance, it is not rushed but savoured through mindful, ritualistic practice and living at the individual and communal scale. Time is perceived beyond its immediate present, the past (occasionally the future as well) is considered relevant and converges as a spatial-temporal nexus.
Time biased architecture is defined by its historical conscious. It is an architecture aware of itself, determined to tell a story that reflects the identity and values of the community. It is an architecture that synchronizes, that weaves temporal connections through the past and the present and amongst people towards community. Time biased architecture is defined in the process, in collaboration and participation, through materiality, all of these are important and imbedded in the society’s conscious just as much as the end result. It is also a move towards more sustainable practices, where we are more conscious about what and why we build.
Urban development in Africa is surging, as more people are turning to towns and cities in search of economic opportunities. This growing demand is spurring infrastructural development in many African nations. It is through a deliberate imposition of time biased consciousness that a critical intervention can occur, so that cities are not defined solely by the formidable force that is economic expansion.
Space biased construction is high carbon emissions. Matter in the form of a building is intended to materialise in no time. It is you strolling languidly in the city only to find yourself encountering countless walls of glass reflecting back to you, a you that is a unit within its ubiquitous systems and bureaucracy.
The temporal dimension is a paradigm shift towards “ourselves”, towards the decolonial, towards an architecture rooted in the local, the subjective, the cultural and towards equity. It is an architecture created to connect and build communities.
The temporal dimension involves reading the material and immaterial of the urban and/or rural architectural footprint in order to derive the customs and beliefs of a locality. In contexts where there has been a discontinuity and disregard of indigenous architectural practice, a recovery is necessary in order to create an architecture that reflects the value of that community. The perception of heritage within temporal bias shifts from a fixation of objects, volume, and grandeur. It becomes an approach of recovering one’s own cultural repository.
It is the restoration of the great mosque of Djenne.
It is the understanding that spatial temporal heritage is beyond form, it is kinetic not static, it is a spiritual practice forgotten, a collective conscious, a language, a way of living that allows us to create spaces that reflect who we are.
It is the palimpsest of Addis Ababa.
The temporal dimension lies in the traces of the city’s heritage, within the old neighbourhoods, along the organic streets that rich spatiotemporal practices can be found.
Bibliography
Bouman, Ole. ‘Time-based Architecture’. Archis. 1 February 2003, https://archis. org/volume/time-based-architecture/
Curtis, William JR. ‘Modernism and the Search for Indian Identity’, Architectural Review. 22 July 2020. www.architectural-review.com/places/india/modernismand-the-search-for-indian-identity.
Giedion, Sigfried. Space, Time and Architecture: The Growth of a New Tradition. 5., rev.Enlarged ed. The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures for 1938-1939. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Pr, 2008.
Innis, Harold Adams. The Bias of Communication. Repr. d. Ausg. 1951. Toronto: University Press, 2003. May, Jon, and Nigel Thrift, eds. Timespace: Geographies of Temporality. 1st edition. London ; New York: Routledge, 2001.
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Nkiwane, Luba N. ‘African Spacetime, a paradox to Spacetime Compression.’ IUAV, University of Venice, 2023.
Pieterse, Edgar, Abdoumaliq Simone, and University of Cape Town, eds. Rogue Urbanism: Emergent African Cities. Auckland Park, South Africa: Jacana, 2013.
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