Inhabiting

TECHNIQUES FOR INHABITING TIME
Ignacio Montaldo, Arch.

The action of inhabiting reveals the ontological origins of architecture.  In Spanish “Habitar” means “TO BE HABITUALLY”. And Being, implies attributing to the subject a circumstantial way of existing, of existing in a certain place and of existing in a certain place recurrently, in time. We inhabit space and we inhabit time. To understand the concept of inhabiting and its essence, we can think of the idea of ​​Semper’s cabin[1] and its four elements that make up the origin of architecture, where the first of them is fire, linked to energy, around which primitive man gathered for the night; Following that guideline, the rest of the elements will emerge to protect that fire, a fabric that will protect it from the wind, it will hang from a structure, generating a cover on a level floor that forms the basement. In this idea it is the home, the fire, around which the act of living arises, and with it the meeting of people, and the exchange of ideas and thoughts. This idea of ​​understanding architecture as a cultural and technical practice that works from the manipulation of matter and energy becomes contemporary. Iñaki Ablaos, in his text The Good Life[2], has revealed to us how each way of living is linked to a particular way of thinking, to a philosophical current. We inhabit as we think. We are in this world as we understand it and finally it is the theory that turns “the real” into a “certain reality” on which we move and operate[3].

[1] RIGOTTI, ANA MARÍA “Estructura y envolvente en las primeras formulaciones teóricas de la arquitectura moderna” (ANPCyT: PICT Nº 33975/2005 -. SCYT UNR PIP 19 A094)
[2] ABALOS, IÑAKI; “The Good Life: A Guided Visit to the Houses of Modernity. Park Books. 2017.
[3] MORALES, JOSÉ RICARDO; “Arquitectónica, Sobre la idea y el sentido del arte”. Ed. Biblioteca Nueva. Madrid. 1999.