The phenomenon of temporary architecture – its background and potential

Abstract

The article focuses on temporary, non-permanent architecture whose relationship with time as its determining aspect often dominates over its fundamental relationship with space. It analyses the theoretical background of temporality and ephemerality in architectural discourse. The relationship of temporary architecture and time, including the milestones and the changes it brought throughout history is briefly presented. These milestones were identified based on researching numerous case studies, compared and analysed using diagrams. The article presents its conclusions outlining a time axis of different concepts in relation to temporary architecture and the impossible attempts to define temporary architecture in simple terms. Categorization of temporary architecture is another outcome of the PhD research presented in the paper. It is based on extensive research of numerous case studies and concepts, with emphasis put on several common features observed despite the prevailing uniqueness of the concepts. This categorization describes the background explaining the development and changes in temporary architecture designs over the time up to present days.

Keywords

• temporariness
• ephemerality
• time
• attractor
• temporary architecture