Between being and becoming: The language of metaphysics in architecture

Abstract

The use of platonic solids like cubes, spheres and pyramids, and a certain sense of "timelessness" are some of the most recognisable ways in which metaphysics has been interpreted as a formal language within the domain of architecture, particularly since the emergence of the avant-gardes at the beginning of the twentieth century. Starting by critically confronting different ways of interpreting this relationship, this paper proposes a specific phenomenological approach on the subject, focused on the analysis of the concept of timelessness and the possible theoretical foundations of its distinctive role in articulating the metaphysical expression in architecture.