Tracking Timebleeds

In a long-ago essay I argued that some architects theorists, specifically Peter Eisenman and Daniel Libeskind, were trying to unfreeze time and space, particularly in early, theoretical projects.  I hypothesized, relying on Freudian theories, that it is impossible to directly approach the terrifying prospect of death. (Freud and others argue this is the inevitable conclusion of recognizing the passage of time.)  I argued that Eisenman, in his Romeo + Juliet Project, consciously used the strategies of a neurotic—repetition, fetishization, partialization—to obliquely address the passage of time.  Libeskind, as he described in Architectural Intermundium, designed operable machines to make architectural propositions literally performative.  Through his Reading, Writing, and Memory Machines he invited users to unfreeze time and space through action.

The questions raised by those 1980s projects continue to haunt me.  How can architects, who typically create second-degree objects (not buildings, but templates to create buildings) use our imaginations, our talents, our tools, to unfreeze space and time?  How might we demonstrate, or make visible, an experience in flux?

See Timebleeds here