Time is one of the most important aspects of architecture and historic preservation, when determining what a new building should look like or whether or not a building is eligible for designation. The term 'zeitgeist' is often used -- a German word translated as 'spirit of the age' -- when arguing that buildings should represent our own age. I show how a more fluid conceptualization of time can be applied to architecture and preservation to create a better built environment. Mr. Payne teaches architecture and design at Deerfield Academy. He has also worked professionally in the architecture and preservation fields. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Comments

1. I believe what many modern architects and designers fail to understand/remember is that many of the so-called fathers of modernism; Gropius, van der Rohe, Johnson, Kahn (as mentioned below),etc... were very well informed and educated in the classical and vernacular traditions. These traditions have been all but forgotten and dismissed as "...ordinary and commonplace and doesnt generate interesting spaces..." This seems to me an ignorant and naive way to look at Classicism and Vernacular traditions. Besides, what is more beautiful than a city that has it's own "look" and "feel"? The aforementioned traditions come out of a pragmatic approach that has spanned millennia, and were eliminated from academia in a very direct way. Out of the some 200+ architecture schools in the country there is only 1 that teaches Classicism, along with a handful more that have small components of vernacular and classical. Instead of stroking the ego of the individual architect (as modernism does with it's call for nothing but the UNIQUE!), perhaps a rebirth of civic beauty and care is to be taken with our cities and buildings within them. Long ago, someone built a pedimented roof and his neighbor exclaimed ,"wow, that sheds rain pretty well, I think I will borrow that idea for my house!" Now we build flat roofs and design water systems that bring water into the building through interior gutters, what a brilliant idea! (sarcasm*) It's not that Classical and Vernacular approaches are the only way to build, though it seems to me continuing local traditions brings about the most beautiful and unique cities in the world. If we aren't careful every city on the planet will begin to look like Anyplace, Anywhere, with its fragmented and corrugated metal sidings, roofs and walls of glass and lifespans of mere decades instead of centuries and millennia.
2. i agree that archjtecture should be timeless, but copying buildings from the past is just seems to me ordinary and commonplace and doesnt generate interesting spaces as we as architects could, i think this is a very limiting way of thinking, many architects have acommplished designing timeless architecture without replicating the past, like peter zumthor, louis khan, alejandro aravena, francis kere, ricardo legorreta or take a look at vernacular architecture reinvented in creative ways such as morroco modern architecture, i think you just gave bad examples to further your point