L’orizzonte della memoria

Duration, Change and Extended Time in the Ecumenical Cemetery of Caltagirone

Abstract

This contribution uses a recent competition project for a materially lightweight intervention in a historically significant cemetery in Catania, Italy—developed as part of the author’s research-led design practice—to articulate and explore the interrelated temporal dimensions of architecture. In so doing, it maps these dimensions against a series of contemporary philosophical positions, which attempt to interrogate the notion of “time” beyond its relation to human experience.

To this end, this contribution seeks to frame the intervention (and its originating design approach) in terms of its fluid, transformative, extended temporality, demonstrating how it may exceed its "visible" life cycle as an architectural proposal. Developing as a discussion that articulates design decisions in relation to specific theoretical positions, the text proceeds to flesh out "architectural temporality" in programmatic, material, and instrumental terms. This threefold approach aims to offer a comprehensive exploration of the interrelated (and potentially intertwined) dimensions of "temporality," with a view to positing them as three active principles for structuring design: The programmatic extension of time embedded in the spiritual character of the necropolis, the constantly evolving nature of the design process —both within and outside the human temporal sequence— and the consideration of materiality beyond the ephemeral moment when material components become an architectural object.