Paper short abstract:

This paper presents a possible understanding and valorization of architecture based on temporality. From an ethnographic approach, we propose an interpretation of the multiple dimensions of time in the production of domestic architecture in a series of communities in the north of Argentina.

Paper long abstract:

Valorization of architectures tends to be based on their materiality and spatiality, leaving out the temporal dimensions, intrinsic to their becoming. The views on conservation, in fact, have tended to a kind of immobilization of time. The objective of this paper is to highlight the value and understanding of architecture from the understanding of temporality, not only historical, but also from temporal scales of the instant, the everyday, the seasonal and the generational, in the inhabiting and production of architectures. These are constitutive not only of the materialities, but also of the subjects that produce, inhabit and carry meaning from their complex relationships.

The paper will be based on an ongoing doctoral research in a series of communities in the area of Nazareno, in northern Argentina, focused on a comprehensive understanding of domestic architectures. The methodology of this research is based on fieldwork with an ethnographic approach, starting from participant observation, semi-structured interviews, complemented with a technical record of the buildings. This approach highlights the centrality of temporality for a multiple understanding of the past, the present and the future. From this it will be possible to put in tension the institutional logics of conservation, to recognize how the communities themselves establish practices for the sustainability in time of their architectures, from temporalities framed in other possible ontologies.