The general trend to seek all that is contemporary, immediate or up-to-date makes us unfit to confront the passage of time. The search for timelessness is a more rewarding effort.
Whether built, imagined or even vanished, architecture is ageless when it is exemplary -when a building can trascend its physical quality to become inspiring.
The Temple of Solomon or Newton´s Cenotaph are timless works of architecture. So is Mies´ Barcelona Pavilion, which never ceased to exist -even during the years when it stayed demolished.
A building can disappear due to different, even whimsical reasons, but permanence is brought by causes that are necessarily in debt with craftsmanship, with function, its moral condition or with the passion which it has aroused - and indeed with the capacity of the building to adapt.
I believe that those who know the Great Coxwell Barn will agree that this is a fine example of survival in civil architecture. For everyone, this essay tries to lay out the causes behind permanence, with the conviction that they contain universal principles.
Keywords:
Timelessness, Great Coxwell, Honesty, William Morris, Preface
Author Biography
Tuska Arroyo García, Madrid, Spain
Tesista en Programa de Doctorado en Patrimonio Arquitectónico en el Departamento de Composición de la Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de la Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, España. Sus áreas de interés son la Historia del Arte y Teoría de la Arquitectura.
Arroyo García, T. (2017). A quest for timelessness. The Great Coxwell Barn. Revista De Arquitectura, 22(33), Pág. 65–73. https://doi.org/10.5354/0719-5427.2017.47698
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