337and deterioration, or through the wear that leaves traces on
footworn or smoothly polished areas, but in particular by
the way in which traces of use support familiar situations
and endow the surroundings with permanence and stability
through enduring aesthetic qualities. At the same time, archi-
tecture displays the changes it experiences, registering inter-
ventions that are on the one hand experienced as attacks on
the familiar, but on the other allow time to be read in space
(Karl Schlögel), and which confront us with history in the
present. Differing temporal horizons are superimposed, from
the short-term effects of current activities and events, which
are paramount for perception, to changes of fashion, and all
the way to the sedimentation of historical developments in a
city’s ground plan. Architecture becomes a form of ‘collective
memory’ (Halbwachs 1985) not just as a solidified chronicle
of historical events and conditions (> monument), but also
by palpably conserving the conceptual basis of architectural
ideas and > concepts in the permanent form of archi-tectural
structures.
As a rule, however, time brings a multiplicity of concep-
tual or even tangible reinterpretations. As concrete locations,
we can experience and recreate historical processes of growth,
destruction, extension as something living through construc-
tive and spatial ruptures, transitions and amalgamations.
When we compare our perceptions of works from various
epochs, meanwhile, the relationship between permanence and
change becomes visible. Registered in the face of continuously
changing styles, forms, materials and methods of construction
are ever-recurring spatial configurations, which have stood
the test of time. Nor should we underestimate the degree to
which the passage of time can allow a building to become to-
tally transformed in perception through changes in our visual
habits. Habituation too plays a role, so that over time, some
buildings become virtually invisible.
Literature: Giedion 1965/1982; Weston 2003; Zucker 1924