From What Times Is This Place? Form as a Chronotope in the Architecture of Enric Miralles

Abstract

In 1994, Enric Miralles published From what time is this place?, a brief text where the relationship between space and time is claimed through the form of the Igualada Cemetery Park and different conditions of time are considered. The title is presumably written after the book by Kevin Lynch What time is this place?, where the human sense of time and the relationship between the innate consciousness of time and place and the objective time of the world are addressed. Related to this concept arises the notion of the chronotope—from kronos, time, and topos, place; literally timeplace, defined by Mikhail Bakhtin as the intrinsic connectedness of spatial and temporal relationships assimilated in the artistic form. Approaching Miralles’ own words, this text examines the condition of architectural form as a chronotope in the Igualada Cemetery Park and in three of his projects to analyze, firstly, the strategies used and, secondly, the consequences of the connection of space and time in the form and in space and time themselves: the spatialization of time, temporalization of space, and temporalization of time. As a result, some reflections contribute to the contemporary debate on form in architecture as a spatiotemporal discipline: a chronotopic architecture.

1. Reality, Form and Chronotope

Challenging the assertion of architecture as the Art of Building [1] or the Art of Space [2], in recent decades, both critics and practitioners have presented different approaches to architecture as a spatiotemporal discipline [3]. A wide range of views, although heterogeneous, that coincide with the revision of the traditional notions of space and time and are aligned with the attitudes that emerged in art during the second half of the 20th century, especially in land art, where space and time merge in the form [4].

Among these perspectives, in What time is this place?, Kevin Lynch considers the notion of timeplace—time and place—as “a continuum of the mind, as fundamental as spacetime that may be the ultimate reality of the material world” [5]. Related to this concept, but applied specifically to the creation of artistic forms, the notion of chronotope is defined by Mikhail Bakhtin as “the intrinsic connectedness of spatial and temporal relationships assimilated that are artistically expressed in literature” [6] (p. 84).

Considering its specific formal condition, the notion of chronotope has subsequently been applied to architecture by many authors [7,8,9,10,11,12,13], focusing not only on narrative associations [14] but also on the physical connection between space and time bounded in matter [15]. Within these readings, the architecture of Enric Miralles emerges as an example of chronotopic architecture [16], where space and time acquire the same relevance and are managed together [17]. Among his works, the Igualada Cemetery Park1 stands out as a paradigmatic case of this architecture of space and time [18] (Figure 1).

In From what time is this place?, Miralles himself affirms the intrinsic union of space and time through form in the Igualada Cemetery Park: “The way that different conditions of time can be expressed by forms is perhaps one of the most important insights I had from the Igualada project” [19] (p. 104).

Addressing his own words, this text studies the connection of space and time assimilated in the form of the Igualada Cemetery Park and contrasts it with the form of three of his other projects to examine the consequences of this connectedness on the same form and on space and time themselves. The analysis assumes the possibility of a trilogical reality of the form2 established by the interaction between the physical reality of the world—matter; the psychophysical reality of experience—appearance; and the psychological reality of the mind—ideas. As a result, some reflections are contributed to the state of the art on form in architecture as a spatiotemporal reality.

Although there are approaches based on a trilogical structure of reality [21], these approaches rarely consider the spatiotemporal circumstance of form. On the contrary, although there are approaches based on a spatiotemporal circumstance of form [22], these approaches do not consider a trilogical structure of reality. Consequently, an approach to the spatiotemporal condition of form from a trilogical reality represents a contribution to the current debate on architecture and, particularly, on the architecture of Miralles.

1.1. A Trilogical Reality: World, Mind, and Experience; Space, Time, and Spacetime

The nature of the world that is perceived, the nature of the mind that perceives it, and the nature of their relationship to each other have been important questions since ancient times. Understood as different manifestations of the same reality by monists3, and as independent realities by dualists4, the world–mind question5 was overcome when phenomenologists introduced the reality of experience as a reality itself that participates in both the reality of the world and the reality of the mind [24].

Bounded on this debate, the nature of space and time, the nature of their mutual correspondence, and the nature of their relationship to the reality of the world and the reality of the mind have also been fundamental questions addressed throughout the history of human thought [25]. Interpreted as universal and empirical appearances of the world that are unified by the senses in the classical era, as absolute realities in themselves after their reification by some thinkers, or as systems made of relationships by others, in the modern era [21], the interdependence of space and time declared by Einstein [26] merged these dimensions into a spacetime continuum and caused a paradigm shift [27], a change in the way of understanding reality that permeated many other disciplines, including architecture, where many approaches, like the ones developed by Giedion [28] or Zevi [29], attempted to relate time to space while maintaining a hierarchical subordination of time to space: time as the fourth dimension of space.

Taking all this into account, a trilogical reality emerges, where a reality of the world—ordered by matter and geometry [30]; a reality of the mind—articulated by meaning and intention [31]; and a reality of experience—based on acts and appearance [32]—meet and coexist. It is a trilogical reality in which, considered as discernible manifestations of the same reality in everyday life [33], the space and time of the world—defined by measurement [34]; the space and time of the mind—defined by modality [23]; and the time and space of experience—defined by quality [23]—overlap (Figure 2).

1.2. A Trilogical Form: Real, Perceived, Active

As Mario Perniola points out [35], the Western notion of form is characterized by its controversial origin, fusing the ancient notions of morphé, the form given to the senses, and eidos, the form given to the mind. This demonstrates an antagonism of the sensible and the suprasensible, against which theories of aesthetics tried to react in the 20th century, having to deal with other notions of form as an order applied to acts6, as a boundary7, as a configuration8, and as an a priori of the mind9.

Regarding this polysemy, Władysław Tatarkiewicz [36] lists, among other secondary interpretations10, the primary notions of form as the disposition, arrangement, or order of parts—Form A; as what is given directly to the senses—Form B; as the boundary or contour of an object—Form C; as the conceptual essence of an object—Form D; and as a contribution of the mind to the perceived object—Form E. A range of meanings illustrates a difference that is made according to the reality where the form is considered: a given form in the world—Form A and Form C; a given form in the senses—Form B but also Form C and Form E; and a given form in the mind—Form D but also Form E.

The problem of form is, consequently, the problem of its multiple circumstances: as a physical form—in the world; as a psychophysical form—in the senses; and as a psychological form—in the mind. This is an issue noted by Adolf Hildebrand [20], who distinguished a real form—Daseinsform—defined by matter; a perceived form—Erscheinungsform—characterized by appearance; and an effective form—Wirkungsform—defined by thought and responsible for empathy. Following Hildebrand, these three conditions of form—real, perceived, and active—relate, in a trilogical scheme of reality, to the physical reality of the world, to the psychophysical reality of experience, and to the psychological reality of the mind.

1.3. The Chronotope

Among the attempts to bring the interdependence of space and time from science to art, the notion of chronotope11—literally timeplace—was defined by Bakhtin as the intrinsic connectedness of spatial and temporal relationships assimilated in an artistic form [6] (p. 84). “In the literary artistic chronotope, spatial and temporal indicators are fused into one carefully thought-out, concrete whole. Time, as it were, thickens, takes on flesh, and becomes artistically visible; likewise, space becomes charged and responsive to the movements of time, plot, and history. The elements of time are revealed through space and space is understood and measured through time. This intersection of axes and fusion of indicators characterizes the artistic chronotope” [6] (p. 84).

For Bakhtin, the chronotope means a whole, an indissoluble union of space and time in the form12, where the projection of space into time—and vice versa—causes a material category that sets, in the mind, a representation that is articulated from the subjective experience of one’s own temporality [6].

Overcoming the banal attempts to bring the interdependence of space and time to architecture in the subordination of time to space [16] (p. 17), and through an approach to space and time in mutual equivalence and with equal importance, the term chronotope was later applied as the union of space and time in the form of the place [8,14], and specifically to the architecture of Enric Miralles [8,15,18,37].

1.4. The Architecture of Enric Miralles

Among those architectural practices that have sought to overcome the subordination of time to space, the architecture of Enric Miralles has been described as an architecture where space and time merge through the dialogue between project and place [8]; as an architecture capable of producing an awareness of time from the individual and collective experience of space [22]; as an architecture that highlights the pretension of immutable forms in favor of forms based on their constant change [15]; as a spatiotemporal architecture, where space and time acquire equivalent importance [17]; and as a chronotopic architecture, where space and time are linked in place [18,37].

In addition to being chronotopic, the architecture of Miralles is unique: an overflowing work characterized by a personal character that, however, allows for the reading of common features in its making. An architecture of the discontinuous, made of a casual assembly of particular solutions [38] that does not seek an idea of space as the final result of the process but rather produces space as a result of a process where creative mechanisms from artistic disciplines other than architecture and the combination of miscellaneous referents are possible thanks to the distracted gaze of memory–imagination that produces a formally novel and unpredictable architecture [39]. An architecture with the Complexity of the Real [40] that does not hide the complex reality from which it starts, in an interaction with the place that understands the building as part of it.

Despite these analyses, there is a lack of a specific bibliography that interprets his architecture in a comprehensive manner, in contrast to the extensive graphic reproduction of his works [41]. Thus, a distance arises, often unbridgeable, between the form imagined by Miralles and the form acknowledged by those who read it. Among the recurrent readings of his ways of producing, only a few studies address a way of reading his work—Miralles himself explains his way of doing it in several texts [42,43]—and within these, only a few works account specifically for the relationship between space and time in his architecture [15,17,18,22,44]. However, these approaches consider form in a partial way, and when its trilogical circumstance is observed, the spatiotemporal condition is sidestepped, and vice versa: when its spatiotemporal circumstance is examined, its trilogical condition is unnoticed. Only the allusions made by Muntañola observe space, time, and a trilogical condition of the form together, but just a brief reading of the consequences of their connection is developed.

1.5. The Igualada Cemetery Park

In 1985, the proposal ZEMEN+IRI—designed by Enric Miralles and Carmen Pinós—was awarded the first prize in the Preliminary Design Competition for a new Cemetery Park in Igualada, Barcelona. The project, divided into five stages, was described as “an excavated zigzagging path, filled with trees, and bounded by burials” [45]. In 1987, the project for the Initial Phase—developed by Miralles and Pinós and titled SEMEN+IRI—included significant changes to the plan and section—while maintaining the identity of the previous design—to ensure that the form made sense on its own [46]. The most remarkable change was the specialization of both sides of the path—one undulating and the transformation of the section into an interior space—to prevent the cutting from having a street nature (Figure 3) [47]. One form, two projects: “developing the project meant working within the first proposal, allowing possible escapes from it” [46].

2. Miralles by Miralles (Materials and Methods)

Enric Miralles had a particular way of drawing and writing in which graphics and text merge and interact [48]. Furthermore, it is possible to find many words—talks and writings—accompanying the drawings of his projects that build a vast constellation to explore when examining his work.

Considering this, and to explore a possible answer to the question From what time is this place?—which Miralles stated regarding the Igualada Cemetery Park—a critical discourse analysis is chosen as a qualitative research methodology and is applied to a hermeneutical body built with the collection of writings and talks compiled in Archigraphias [49], expanded with unpublished conferences and untranslated articles. Thus, an extensive examination of the audiovisual archives found in multiple sources preceded the discourse analysis as the method used throughout this research.

After this archival examination, and working within this constellation of words from a trilogical structure of reality and form—physical, psychophysical, and psychological—the discourse analysis is driven by the primary categories of form, space, and time and the subcategories of built form—in the reality of the world; perceived form—in the reality of experience; and figured form—in the reality of the mind—to analyze the interrelation of space and time in the Igualada Cemetery Park firstly and in other projects secondly. In this analysis, three projects stand out regarding this relationship: the Small Wooden House in Kolonihaven, the Roofing in Paseo Icaria, and the Renovations to an apartment in Calle Mercaders. Following this scheme, the results of the analysis of the Igualada Cemetery Park are discussed together with these projects.

3. Form, Space, and Time in Igualada Cemetery Park (Results)

3.1. Form in the Igualada Cemetery Park

In his own words, Miralles describes the form of the Igualada Cemetery Park as the interaction of three elements, land, tombs, and trees: “The only decision we made was to make a cut in the land, which will contain bodies on both sides, and fill this cut with trees” [50]. The land is understood as a void form—related to Form A in Tatarkiewicz: “Through excavation, I was able to hollow the landscape” [19] (p. 102); tombs are understood as a boundary form—related to Form C in Tatarkiewicz: “Making a cut in the ground and displacing it, giving quality to this limit that you are displacing” [47]; and trees are understood as a mass form—related to From B in Tatarkiewicz: “First, you make the cut, and then, you fill it with the trees” [50].

A void form built as a cut: “The Igualada Cemetery is nothing more than a deep cut in the ground” [51]; perceived as a path: “This walking produces a groove that constitutes a path, back and forth” [52]; and interpreted as a mark: “The Cemetery itself was like a mark” [47].

A boundary form built as a wall: “The niches are the retaining walls of this path” [53]; perceived as a threshold: “Everything that is done on this wall has to say that there is something behind, behind, and behind. They are very, very porous walls. For this reason, there is a different series of closures” [54]; and interpreted as a collective tomb: “The very walls of The Cemetery become death itself” [55].

A mass form built as an infill: “The trees that occupy the interior of the cemetery” [56]; perceived as a cloud: “In the landscape, this path is a cloud of trees” [57]; and interpreted as a reconstruction: “Once the land has been cut, the vegetation causes it to fade over time, rebuilding it” [50].

3.1.1. Built Form and the Time of the World

Regarding the relationship between the built space and the time of the world in the Igualada Cemetery Park, Miralles stated the following: “The incision represents absolute time, while its various details give material form to the measurable flow of time” [19] (p. 104).

Among the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the land and the time of the world, Miralles refers to erosion—the subtraction of matter: “To use this place is to make it disappear: like the leaves on the wooden pavement, or the rain, which drags the earth to the bottom of the cut” [58]; sedimentation—the addition of matter: “The progressive occupation of the cut by the soil” [58]; and weathering—the breakdown of matter: “For me, a work is not finished by the architect, but by its use and its vicissitudes, the wear and tear and the same breaks that will occur on it” [59] (Figure 4).

As for the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the tombs and the time of the world, Miralles refers to the closure of a particular space—with the singular time of individual death: “Never hiding the main issue, which is someone who is behind it” [54]; the closure of a communal space—with the plural time of collective death: “Defining a type of tomb, which is a collective tomb” [50]; and the infilling of the niches with offerings—with the ritual time of ceremonies: “The memories that are laid in the cracks of the tombs” [42] (p. 33) (Figure 5).

For the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the trees and the time of the world, Miralles refers to their planting—the programming of matter: “The path again becomes a filled-in landscape, as trees are planted in it” [60] (p. 18); their growth—the increasing of matter: “Over time, trees will grow into the cut” [50]; and the deposit of their leaves on the ground—the accumulation of matter: “The leaves of the trees must fall on a place where they can stay” [55] (Figure 6).

3.1.2. Perceived Form and the Time of the Experience

Regarding the relationship between the perceived space and the time of the experience in the Igualada Cemetery Park, Miralles stated the following: “Time can be traced in all these elements as their appearance alters” [19] (p. 104).

Among the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the land and the time of the experience, Miralles refers to the time of accessing: “The cemetery project could indeed be described with this rhetoric of accessing … almost not being able to enter. At the end, behind a door, you are always, again, outside the building” [61]; trespassing: “People perceive that they walk in the transverse direction, crossing and entering. Not following any processional element.” [50]; and stopping: “Spaces, where you can stop … interrupted movements, never promenade-type routes, without thought. You need to stop.” [47]. Three times—accessing, trespassing, and stopping—provoke temporal disorientation—“The ritual walk was almost this disorientation” [54]—by means of “establishing relationships and at the same time denying them” [47] through a form that is entangled: “routes with the same quality of a labyrinth” [47]; reflected: “The services building has also worked as a place, in this case, equivalent to the cut in the land. Its mirror symmetry would give us a similar section: zenithal light, cornice, double interior” [62]; and repeated: “The model under which the entire cemetery is being built is the repetition of spaces” [47] (Figure 7).

As for the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the tombs and the time of the experience, Miralles refers to the rhythm in the gaze established by the succession of modules: “The clear gestalt aspect of the presence of the sky modulated by the top of the burial chambers” [60] (p. 18); the depth of the gaze established by the thickness of the surfaces: “Cast pieces on the closure of coffins and small pieces of precast concrete in situ on the walls… They do not hide what they cover, but rather they blur the limits of the cut” [58]; and the framing of the gaze established by the gaps in the walls: “These parts are quite theatrical by the way: actions that almost penetrate through the coffins to jump out on the other side” [60] (p. 18) (Figure 8).

For the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the trees and the time of the experience, Miralles refers to how their shadows move—in a projection of the form: “The vegetation fills the gaps in the ditches and the shadows begin to work like a clockwork” [52]; how their leaves move—in a vibration of the form: “different kinds of poplar tree which fill the incision in the ground with their small, silvery leaves. The slightest breeze makes the leaves move and shimmer in the sunlight” [19] (p. 104); and how their foliage veils the sky—in the permeability of the form: “This is recovered at the end in the cutting with the sky, the cutting with the trees” [47] (Figure 9).

3.1.3. Interpreted Form and the Time of the Mind

Regarding the relationship between the figured space and the time of the mind in the Igualada Cemetery Park, Miralles stated the following: “It transforms into a landscape and leaves traces, and later, we can read some of them, almost like we read the newspaper” [63].

Among the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the land and the time of the mind, Miralles refers to the possibility of the form to recover a past that never was: “My idea, at that time, was to fashion the landscape, which until then had been used for agriculture, in such a way that it would resemble the channel which a stream cuts into farmland by erosion” [19] (p. 102); the possibility of the form to detain a present in a non-directional time: “We move through an immobile landscape. By looking at the place as a cemetery, we immobilize it” [57]; and the possibility of the form to anticipate a future set as a previous time: “If, over time, the cemetery transforms into this again, that is, into a very similar texture and is almost forgotten and becomes an extension of forgotten land, surely that is what interest you the most” [64] (Figure 10).

As for the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the tombs and the time of the mind, Miralles refers to the possibility of the form to evoke a past in the present of its reading: “A rhomboidal slab of stone or cast iron that does not completely cover the hole and is the tombstone of the inscriptions” [53]; the possibility of the form to unify time into a repeated present: “This is the only piece where we propose that nothing be written, so that there is simply something that is repeated in all the tombs” [54]; and the possibility of the form to anticipate an inevitable future: “I was really interested in going through the wall. That is, being aware of death” [54] (Figure 11).

For the strategies used to establish a relationship between the form of the trees and the time of the mind, Miralles refers to the possibility of the form to rescue a past by recovering a previous form: “Rebuilding again with natural elements the same land that you had hollowed out” [47]; the possibility of the form to repeat time into a recurrent present: “As a way of repeating reality. Just as the trees repeated the cut” [65]; and the possibility of the form to anticipate a predicted future: “So when the trees grow, they will make the place disappear” [50] (Figure 12).

4. Form, Space, and Time in the Architecture of Miralles (Discussion)

4.1. Form as a Spatialization of Time

If spatializing refers to distributing something in space, making it extend in its dimensions and obtaining, in its unfolding, dimensions that are not of its own, the spatialization of time, consequently, involves the distribution of time in the extension of space through a relationship of correspondence between spatial and temporal dimensions. As a direct result, time acquires a corporeality in the corporeality of form and obtains, through this, a physical figuration that gives it its status as a thing in its geometry—in which space is worth time and vice versa—and allows for the assignment of a well-founded measurability of time in the measurability of space: measuring space and measuring time. Due to its spatialization, time acquires the measure of its figuration—achieving a public order—and space acquires a chronometric and a calendar condition—allowing for the simultaneous presence of multiple times.

Since ancient times, this capacity of form to cause a spatialization of time has been used recurrently, and numerous and varied forms have been developed for this purpose. Sun clocks—gnomons; water clocks—clepsydras; igneous clocks; sand clocks; candle clocks; steam clocks; etc., are examples of instrumental forms designed to measure time in the reading of the change in the form of space defined by matter. Therefore, the read time can be altered by altering the space that is read, allowing an artificial time to be built.

In this sense, Miralles claimed the ability of the form to spatialize the time of the world in the Igualada Cemetery Park through the movement of matter: the erosion, the sedimentation, and the weathering of the land; the growth, the development, and the senescence of the trees; and the singular, the plural, and the ritual infilling of the tombs. A possibility is also acknowledged in the Small Wooden House built in Kolonihaven (Figure 13)—for an international exhibition about the typology of the Kolonihavehus—about which Miralles stated the following: “Kolonihaven has two things, both of which are important. the first one we thought of was a place-to-gather- the-passage-of-time. One of those farmer’s almanacs where the days of the year are like a series of drawers. They are places that are closely related to the personal passage of time. That was the first idea. Then we found a little sketch by Corbu: one of a house with a child and her father when the years go by. And that is one of the key points of the passage of time” [66] (p. 13). “Collecting the passage of time. the house becomes a calendar. It registers the movement of time during the year or during a lifetime. The Children’s Room. A Child inviting an adult to her game, at her size. Papa’ vient chez moi! as drawn by Le Corbusier. Parent and child entering the same place from two different doors: a small one and a big one … The house is built around these familiar movements of time passing by: enveloping furniture, movements, and time” [67] (p. 120). “Small places are instruments for the measurement of time” [68] (p. 320).

According to this, the Wooden House in Kolonihaven configures a form that establishes a double correspondence between its spatial dimension and the temporal dimension of the time of the world, materialized by the botanical time of flower cultivation—a seasonal, repeated, and cyclical time—and the temporal dimension of human time, materialized by the biological time of growth—a progressive, accumulated, and linear time. As in Igualada, the built form in Kolonihaven is understood as a capture of time, as its record, and as a chronic space configured as a time measured in the time of matter.

4.2. Form as a Temporalization of Space

If temporalizing refers to distributing something in time, making it extend throughout its duration and obtaining, in its unfolding, the temporal dimension of that duration, the temporalization of space, consequently, implies the extension of space in a period of time, acquiring time assimilated in the dimensions of its form. In our experience, a form is constituted as such while it is perceived by the senses as an intramundane entity [69]; while it offers a condition as a thing, achieving a figuration that allows it to be differentiated from everything that is not that same thing; and while it ensures coherence in the unity of its multiple appearances—the absence of coherence prevents considering something as the same.

This need of the form to maintain the same thingness, capable of transcending the succession of foreshortenings felt in its perception—because the form is always perceived as foreshortenings in space—subordinates its constitution as a form to its permanence in time. Therefore, the form occurs in the thingness of its foreshortenings in space, in the association of partial representations that inevitably depend on the position of the perceiver and the ability to establish a correspondence between fragments that is only possible in time. To achieve this categorization as a thing, a relationship between the genuine appearance of what is perceived in the moment of the now and the non-genuine appearance of what has already been experienced—still retained in the present—is essential. Thus, the constitution of any form as an entity occurs from a relationship in which the form must be lived in its duration. In this relationship in the experience of foreshortenings as a thing, space abandons any absolute possibility of establishing itself in the relationship between the felt corporeality and the corporeality of the body that feels it—and that it felt—in the movement of the senses, establishing a functional correspondence where space occurs in the body’s time—in the perception of itself and its environment—as a multiplicity of foreshortenings in a multitude of positions.

In this sense, Miralles claimed the capacity of the form to temporalize space in the Igualada Cemetery Park by fusing the movement of appearance: the temporal distortion that is caused by disorientation through zigzagging, reflection, and repetition in the form of the land; the persistent vibration caused by the shadows, the leaves, and the foliage of the form of the trees; and the thickness of a visual hapticity [70] entangled by the rhythm, the depth, and the framing of the gaze in the form of the tombs. All of them are strategies that cause an alteration of the lived time [54]. A capacity of the form is also recognized in the Roofing of the Paseo Icaria (Figure 14)—a succession of pergolas built as artificial trees along a section of the central avenue of the Olympic Village—on which Miralles stated the following: “These roofs follow the rhythm of a festive procession of Giants and Big-Heads. As it passes by, The Paseo changes from being an avenue into a succession of neighborhood houses around several patios. It is a design that works like a game in the eye of the passerby” [71] (p. 184). “Giving and closing the passage with a rhythm different from that of the streets of the new Olympic city: there is also a time difference between the two constructions. The project can be broken down into several movements: the formation of couples, the first steps, the pirouettes, the andante, and the finale” [72] (p. 136). “Perhaps the best means of approaching this work … would be to concentrate on the shadows and fragments … The project shadows are like the footprints of the pillars: they mark the rhythm of the promenade and the passing of people … From a formal point of view, it can be seen as a series of perpendicular interruptions within the linear movement of the street, which tie together its opposite sides” [73] (p. 7). As in Igualada, the perceived form in Icaria is defined by the rhythm of a succession of elements where lived time is fragmented in its experience. It is a durational space configured as a distorted time in the time of appearance: “The masts that occupy the central part of Avenida Icaria are not so different from the trees that occupy the interior of the cemetery at Igualada” [73] (p. 9).

4.3. Form as a Temporalization of Time

Temporalizing time refers to the possibility of assigning a different condition to a given time, both in Physics—the time of the world—and in Philosophy—the time of the mind [74]. A possibility observed by McTaggart [75] in his statement about the unreality of time, when describing the divergence of different time series, is as follows: A series, where time is arranged in a relative order by its condition as past, present, or future, according to the moment in which the series is set; B series, where time is arranged in relative order by its previous or subsequent conditions according to a reference time; and C series, where time is arranged in absolute order by its position as part of a complete sequence. As McTaggart points out, the same event changes in the A series when the present does but remains invariable in the B series, suggesting that time is an abstraction in thought whose descriptions are either contradictory or insufficient.

In this sense, Miralles claimed the capacity of the form to temporalize time in the Igualada Cemetery Park using the movement of thought provoked by figured space: the recovery of a past that never occurred by the simulation of the form of the land and the trees, the pause of a present by reflecting the time of the context in the continuity of the form of the land and the trees, and the anticipation of a future that is established as the time of origin by the expectation embedded in the form of the land and the trees; the presentness of a past in the individualization of the form of the tombs, the continuity of the present in the uniformization of the form of the tombs, and the anticipation of the future in the prolepsis of the form of the tombs. A possibility of the form is also recognized in the Renovations of an apartment on Calle Mercaders (Figure 15), about which Miralles stated the following: “The task involved cleaning, approaching, and discovering the intensity of the utility of construction. Always the same walls. and the floors, used and reused from the Gothic made to the present. Learning to live with a given, second-hand structure, like rummaging through the pockets of an old coat, setting the things one finds on a clean surface. This house works like a chessboard. The pieces move according to the rules of each object. They must always return to the starting point to restart the game. Hence, the floor, which sets the existing items back in front of the windows, or the paints on the walls, which reveal the discovered fragments, are the rules of the game. Amongst them, moving in an orderly fashion, are tables, books, others.” [76] (p. 46).

The form here is configured by three actions: the recovery of previous forms, updating the past through restoration—such as the gothic arches and frescoes on the walls; the rearrangement of reused forms, stopping the present through continuity in its use—such as the ceramic tiles laid as carpets in front of the windows; and the arrangement of new forms, anticipating a previous future due to the constriction to return to an initial position—such as the furniture, understood as pieces of a chess game that reach ephemeral balances. As in Igualada, the figured form in Mercaders is fixed by the modulation of a time that is retemporalized as a modal space configured as a time reordered in the time of meaning.

5. From What Times Is This Place? (Conclusions)

The question asked by Miralles—From what time is this place?—is appropriate but cannot have a simple—unequivocal—answer. It is appropriate since any consideration of a place implies its elemental circumstance as space and time linked together [5]. Still, the possibility of a trilogical nature of reality excludes a unique correlation between place, space, and time. This is a circumstance that Miralles acknowledges in his recognition of form as a physical form given in the movement of matter, as a psychophysical form given in the movement of appearance, and as a psychological form given in the movement of modality. And due to this connection of space and time in the chronotopic form, three characteristic phenomena of chronotopia emerge: a spatialization of time—a time distributed in space; a temporalization of space—a space distributed in time; and a temporalization of time—a time distributed in time itself. As a result of these phenomena, the physical space develops as a chronic space, where the time of the world is built in its matter; the psychophysical space develops as a durational space, where the time of the experience is perceived in its appearance; and the psychological space develops as a modal space, where the time of the mind is reordered in its relationships.

Consequently, the coincidence of having the same form—a place—with different spaces and times gives the form a multiplicity in its own reality that avoids any exclusive correspondence of place, space, and time. Thus, the possibility that the form expresses different conditions of time suggests the reformulation of the question From what time is this place? to From what times is this place?: “There is the assumption of a past and a future. But architecture has a different approach to time. It lives in a kind of continuous present. … time is embedded in places, in things. It has a kind of material quality. … enlarging the capacity to be identified with reality, accepting radically different notions of time in different situations, is what we need to work towards” [77].

Challenging the statement of architecture as the Art of Space or the Art of Building, the inescapable spatiotemporal condition of its form advises reconsidering the discipline as a practice where both space and time acquire the same relevance while configuring a chronotope that unfolds in the spatiotemporal reality of matter, appearance, and meaning; an architecture of space and time, a chronotopic architecture where the following occurs:

• The capacity of the form to provoke a spatialization of time produces an association of the form with the conditions of its context that overcome the pretension of autonomy by caring for its environment in a contextualizing practice that replaces the objective of achieving immutable configurations in its corporeality in favor of a materiality capable of including the passage of time [78,79].
• The capacity of the form to provoke an awareness of the passage of time through the experience of lived space surpasses the search for forms proposed from their functional value in favor of a search for the fundamental experience of a duration that assigns an intensity to the form as a felt interlude [22].
• The capacity of the form to provoke a temporalization of time produces a time that can be configured through its particular identity—individual memories and expectations—as a personal time and as a time that can be configured through its communal identity—through collective traditions and shared desires—as a cultural time [80].

Considering all the above, the possibility of this architecture of both space and time melting in the form arises from the research on the chronotopic circumstance of the architecture of Enric Miralles, and the following hypotheses can be presented:

• The form as a trace configures a geometry of time where, as a sign effect, it allows for the simulation of a time that is not real in the real sense of its effect. In this way, the geometry record of the form itself makes it possible to build an artificial time as if it were a natural time that never existed.
• The form as an interlude configures a duration of space where, in its transitive condition, the circumstances of the form that is felt are merged with the circumstances of the environment in which the form is felt. And in this equation of circumstances, the intensity of the duration can be altered by altering the circumstances implicit in its reference. It can be compressed or expanded into that time of the form where the feeling of the time of the world necessarily participates.
• The form as an identity acquires a self-transcendence where, in its empathy, the unfinished and the ritual equalize the moments of before and after in a continuous present shaped by the endless repetition of accumulated durations: a spiral time, at once cyclical and linear, repeated and new, recurring and progressive, where a monumentality emerges in its permanence in mutation.