If we look for timelessness in architecture, we must look to tradition

Abstract

Architects are no more successful at predicting the future than astrologers or soothsayers. Human beings are quick to adapt to new realities and development does not go in a straight line; they can have – from a Modernist perspective – a perverse attachment to traditions that bring the past into the present. If timelessness means the sense of stepping outside time and change that comes from ignoring passing fashions, we must look to tradition rather than Modernism.

Book review Robert Adam Time for Architecture: On Modernity, Memory and Time in Architecture and Urban Design Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2020