Temporary architecture in the 21st century as an expression of changes taking place in contemporary society

Agnieszka Mańkowska, Artur Zaguła

doi:10.37190/arc220112

Abstract

The subject of the article refers to the condition of contemporary society as a factor shaping our architectural reality. The subject of the considerations is the postmodern society of the highly developed countries of the 21st century, as perceived by Zygmunt Bauman, characterized by individualism, loneliness, life in constant movement and consumerism, recognizing short-termism as a safe form of concluding all kinds of “contracts”, and contemporary temporary architecture as a response to this kind of social need. This article, based on a study of selected cases, presents the proposed typology of contemporary temporary architecture, which, together with the analysis of various relations between this phenomenon and the needs of a postmodern society, leads to an attempt to distinguish postmodern temporary architecture.

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Agnieszka Mańkowska*, Artur Zaguła**

Temporary architecture in the 21

century as an expression

of changes taking place in contemporary society

Introduction

In 1985, Stefan Morawski [1] dened contemporanei-

ty also as being “here and now”. Starting from the year

2022, despite the passage of time, for the vast majority of

society, regardless of scientic denitions, contemporane-

ity is indeed the reality of an individual who builds con-

temporary society. This society, according to the diagno-

sis of Zygmunt Bauman, dened as postmodern society,

has completely new features in relation to traditional and

modern society. Let us list a few of them that best dene

this kind of society and will be useful in the analysis of

contemporary architecture of a temporary nature.

First of all, it is a society of individualists who pursue

not common, but individual, goals, caring not too much

about what is happening around them. As Bauman said:

What we do and see is called “individualization”. And

we would need to try really hard to spot a gardener who

contemplates a pre-designed harmony beyond the fence

of his private garden and then goes out to bring it about

[2, p. 113].

The second feature is consumerism, it is a society of

fashion, fast changing trends and ever new skills. Con-

temporary society is shaping not self-aware citizens, but

consumers who will full their intended role perfectly.

According to Bauman, even culture is no longer a place

of value creation, but becomes a part of the market game:

Culture is now turning into one of the departments in the

“all you need and dream of” department store into which

the world inhabited by consumers has turned. As in other

departments of that store, the shelves are tightly packed

with daily restocked commodities, while the counters are

adorned with the advertisement of latest oers destined

to disappear soon together with the attractions they ad-

vertise. […] Liquid-modern culture has no “people” to

“cultivate”. It has instead clients to seduce. And unlike its

“solid modern” predecessor, it no longer wishes to work

itself. Its job is now to render its own survival permanent

through temporalizing all aspects of life of its former

wards, now reborn as clients [2, p. 125].

The next characteristic is exibility, it is a society that

changes quickly and always starts over when needed: The

postmodern life strategy tells you to avoid everything what

is forever and ever, until death do us apart [3, p. 277].

For this reason one should avoid permanent declarations

and long-term commitments. In the words of Bauman,

we are living in a “liquid modernity”. “Liquid modern”

is a society in which the conditions under which its mem-

bers act change faster than it takes the ways of acting to

consolidate into habits and routines. […] Liquid life, just

like liquid modern society, cannot keep its shape or stay

on course for long [4, p. 1]. Summarizing, the main new

and important features of contemporary society are as fol-

lows: individualism, consumerism, constant change and

movement, short-term experiences based especially on

emotions. This society lives quickly, usually alone, rejects

restrictions and permanent declarations and long-term

commitments.

Postmodern society created, in the 21

century, a new

form of temporary architecture which, unlike the previ-

ous examples of non-permanent architecture, is mainly to

shock, surprise, provoke, fuel consumerism, and above

all, to be short-lived, to appear in a dierent, new form the

next time. Current observations and research show that,

in the 21

century, interest in temporary architecture has

increased, both in terms of use and design. This is also

* ORCID: 0000-0002-8934-8630. Institute of Architecture and

Town Planning, Lodz University of Technology, Poland, e-mail: agnieszka.

mankowska@dokt.p.lodz.pl

** ORCID: 0000-0002-5617-9041. Institute of Architecture and

Town Planning, Lodz University of Technology, Poland.

DOI: 10.37190/arc220112

Published in open access. CC BY NC ND license

142 Agnieszka Mańkowska, Artur Zaguła

conrmed by the words of internationally known art, ar-

chitecture and design critic and writer Aaron Betsky, who

in 2016 noticed: Architecture is going pop. It is nally

sloughing o its ridiculous obsession with eternity, and

learning to live in and for the moment. Pop-up architec-

ture, temporary structures, and other ephemeral frame-

works for equally evanescent events have become all the

rage, especially in Europe [5]. In addition, the words of

writer and historian of architecture and design Tom Dyck -

ho, from 2018 also accurately reect contemporary re-

ality: In the twentieth century, […] architecture became

just another form of media, the building “a mechanism of

representation”

. The postmodern battle of architectural

styles has been won by the architecture best able to com-

municate in this age of instantaneous global communica-

tion, the one that is the most visible, the most thrilling, the

most protable. Welcome to the Wowhaus [6]. These words

can be an introduction to further research. On a few exam-

ples of temporary architectural structures, the contempo-

rary temporary architecture will be veried in terms of the

possibility of responding to (postmodern) social needs.

Methodology

For the purpose of this article, the authors adopted mul-

tiple case studies as the main research method. Scientic

works assume the recognition of contemporary temporary

architecture in relation to the liquid modernity diagnosed

by Bauman and then an attempt to organize and systema-

tize the selected types of objects in order to collect them

into a typology of postmodern temporary architecture in

terms of the aforementioned philosophy. Hence, in the con-

ducted research, the term “postmodern” in “postmodern

temporary architecture” refers to postmodernity as a uid

modernity, not “postmodernism” as an architectural style.

While the topic of temporary architecture is still a new

and not fully explored issue, there have been attempts to

catalog temporary architecture and the like. It took place,

inter alia, in Rebecca Roke’s book Nanotecture. Tiny Built

Things [7], where the smallest architectural forms have

been divided into the micro, mini, midi, macro and maxi

structures. On the other hand, The New Pavilions [8] by

Philip Jodidio divides dierent kinds of pavilions into

objects for gathering, d’art, learning, displaying, seeing /

listening, living / working / play or shelter. Other works

usually come down to the presentation of selected tempo-

rary objects, which we can see, for instance, in Temporary

Architecture [9] by Lisa Baker or Temporary Architec-

ture Now! [10] by Philip Jodidio. As it was mentioned,

this article’s aim is to formulate a sketch of typology of

all contemporary objects of temporary architecture and

distinguish among them a new category of postmodern

temporary architecture. Due to editorial limitations, the

considerations and conclusions presented in this article

constitute only a fragment of the conducted research. Work

on this topic will be continued in further scientic studies.

Colomina B., Privacy and publicity: modern architecture as mass

media, MIT Press, Cambridge 1996 [footnote by T. Dyckho].

Typology of contemporary temporary architecture

Contemporary temporary architecture is a collection of

objects of dierent nature, function and structure. As they

are architectural objects, they include buildings, struc-

tures and small architecture objects. Their temporary na-

ture is evidenced by the materials used with, for instance,

a limited lifespan; the mobility of elements or the entire

structure; as well as the creator’s conscious assumptions

related to, for instance, obtaining a specic temporary ef-

fect. From a legal point of view, a […] temporary building

structure is a structure intended for temporary use in a pe-

riod shorter than its technical durability, intended to be

moved to another place or demolished, as well as a build-

ing structure not permanently connected to the ground,

such as shooting ranges, street kiosks, pavilions street and

exhibition sales, tent covers and pneumatic coatings, en-

tertainment devices, barracks, container facilities, port -

able free-standing antenna masts

[11, p. 3]. On the oth-

er hand, we could even divide temporality in relation to

temporal use, following the work of Ali Cheshmehzan-

gi, who, based on his own considerations also supported

by the research of Tom Mels, William J.V. Neill, Florian

Hayden and Robert Temel, formulated four main types,

including ephemeral, provisional (or interim), temporary

and regular (or regular temporary) [12]. The research of

the authors of this article focused on an attempt to system-

atize contemporary temporary objects due to the function

introduced into them or what function they perform. For

this reason, among all objects of contemporary temporary

architecture, we can nd examples of objects in the fol-

lowing types: objects with a residential function, objects

with educational function, exhibition pavilions, service

and/or commercial facilities, objects and/or treatments to

organize the space, artistic objects and nally other tem-

porary cubatures. Each group will be briey presented and

discussed on the basis of selected examples.

The rst of the above-mentioned types will be the group

of “objects with a residential function” which is a diverse

group, represented both by spontaneously created objects

and well-thought-out constructions, and sometimes even

prototypes. All of the examples show the variety of de-

scribed type, in which we can distinguish, for instance,

objects from unsustainable architecture, structures which

we can dene as “rst aid architecture”, objects built from

sea containers, mobile houses (which, despite possible

controversies, the authors of the article would like to in-

clude as an example of mobile architecture) or assistance

in the eld of social housing.

Starting with favela (favella), as an example of unsus-

tainable architecture, it is a name for Brazilian slums lo-

cated generally in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, as well

as within or outside the country’s other major cities. This

type of development usually arises when wild tenants oc-

cupy empty land on the outskirts of large cities, building

The authors emphasize that the quoted record refers to the Polish

Construction Law, in other countries these regulations may appear dif-

ferently or may be unregulated at all.

Temporary architecture in the 21

century as an expression of changes taking place in contemporary society 143

solution, they can count on a universal interior equipped

with a bed that transforms into a dining table or bench,

a bathtub, a stove and an integrated water tank. The house

is mounted on the frame of a tricycle, its housing is made

of translucent material transmitting both sunlight and city

lighting, the modular structure of which allows for expan-

sion and connection between additional units of the facil-

ity [16]. Reducing private living to the smallest footprint,

the nomadic system promotes sustainable living by taking

advantage of public resources. Public parks replace per-

sonal gardens, public toilets replace private toilets, park-

ing places replace land ownership […] [17, p. 52].

Speaking of objects with residential function, we can-

not ignore social housing support structures. Solutions of

this type, more and more willingly introduced, especial-

ly in highly developed countries, are aimed at helping the

homeless. An example can be the solution from the city of

Ulm, where the sleeping rooms were created as part of the

Ulmer Nest program, which can accommodate up to two

people in need and provide warmth and safety, especially

during winter. The facilities were also designed not as an

al-

ternative to regular housing, but as a refuge in special cases

[18]. The project originated from a proposal of the munic-

ipality of Ulm, Germany, within the temporary problem-

solving initiative “Wilhelmsbüro” of the two Ulm-based

start-up companies Bootschaft and Widerstand und Sӧhne,

and the computer scientist Florian Geisel hart [19].

Another type, from the temporary structures classi-

cation, is “educational objects”. Among the presented ex-

amples illustrating this type of temporary architecture, we

can nd objects created during educational workshops,

prototypes and eco-structures. Such facilities, thanks to

their characteristics of temporary objects, contribute to

the development of science, setting its new directions and

boundaries.

Hello Wood will be the rst to be discussed as an in-

ternational, independent learning platform that teaches

through experience. Hello Wood began its educational

activities in 2010, turning into an art camp and festival

covering 20 universities and 30 countries in the following

houses from stolen or recovered materials. These are usu-

ally makeshift structures, reinforced over time with more

durable materials, such as brick or sheet metal. A feature

of this type of development is the lack of technical in-

frastructure, instead they are equipped with improvised

plumbing and electrical installations, and the waste dispos-

al methods used pose a health risk. Unhygienic living con-

ditions, poor nutrition and pollution, among other things,

are the main causes of the spread of many diseases [13].

The “rst aid architecture”, as another type of the dis-

cussed group, is the architecture that reduces the eects

of natural disasters or the eects of wars, pandemics and

others. Better Shelter is the structure designed and pro-

duced by the IKEA Foundation. The IKEA Foundation

gave rise to the Housing for All Foundation, a non-prot

organization that started a social enterprise called Better

Shelter, from which this temporary facility was named.

Better Shelter is a temporary shelter for basic needs,

equipped with a solar panel and a lamp to provide light in

the dark. No special tools or additional equipment are re-

quired for its assembly. The object is delivered in at pack-

ages, which is the result of a project taking into account in

particular its basic parameters, including volume, weight,

price, safety for health and ease of transport. Thanks to the

cooperation of the IKEA Foundation and UNHCR (The

UN Refugee Agency), Better Shelter can ensure the safe-

ty and dignity of life for millions of refugees who have

found themselves in exceptional circumstances while

eeing violence, armed conicts or natural disasters [14].

When cities around the world are facing an enormous

pressure on available and aordable housing, Urban Rig-

ger seems to be an answer by building mobile communi-

ties on water. It is a unique, oating, exible, mobile prop-

erty improving the environmental footprint of our way of

living in the city. The Urban Rigger, designed by Bjarke

Ingels, was built based on the principles of building with

LEGO bricks. This facility, depending on the needs, can

be easily recreated in any size, located in any place with

access to water and used for various purposes. This is

evidenced by the already commenced projects in Cork,

Rotterdam and San Francisco. In Copenhagen, the current

design community includes 12 apartments ranging from

23 to 30 m

, and each housing unit can accommodate ap-

proximately 100 students. In addition to the residential

part, which takes up approximately 300 m

, twice as much

is intended, among others, on the green courtyard located

in the central part for recreation, bicycles, a bathing pier

and a canoe marina. Additionally, approximately 220 m

is occupied by a basement with a large lounge, kitchen,

laundry room, technical and storage rooms. On the roof

there is an observation deck, a green roof and a place for

solar panels. In the summer of 2019 an additional 5 Rig-

gers joined the rst one in Copenhagen, and we now have

a fully functional oating village, consisting of 72 apart-

ments [15] (Fig. 1).

An example of a mobile home, designed by The Peo-

ple’s Industrial Design and People’s Architecture Oce

in Beijing, for the 2012 Get It Louder Exhibition, is Tri-

cycle House. This structure was created for people who

cannot aord their own home. By choosing the presented

Fig. 1. Urban Rigger, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), Copenhagen

(image courtesy Bjarke Ingels Group)

Il. 1. Urban Rigger, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group), Kopenhaga

(zdjęcie dzięki uprzejmości Bjarke Ingels Group)

144 Agnieszka Mańkowska, Artur Zaguła

On the other hand, Mediated Matter scientists from the

MIT Media Lab created a project to investigate the pos-

sibility of combining digital and biological techniques for

producing architectural structures. As part of the research,

a dome of silk bers woven by a programmed robotic arm

was created. This arm has been programmed to mimic the

way the silkworm is depositing silk. The arm then placed

a kilometer long silk bers on at polygonal and metal

frames, thus forming 26 panels which were arranged in

a dome and suspended from the ceiling. The last stage of

the project was to place, on the structure prepared in this

way, 6,500 live silkworms, which, crawling on the dome,

supplemented the structure with the missing silk bers.

This is how The Silk Pavilion was created [22].

In 2014, the New York studio The Living, with its own

structure called Hy-Fi, won the annual Young Architects

Program (YAP), competition organized by MoMA PS1. In

this competition, young architects propose their vision of

a temporary structure, which then becomes, in a way, the

host of the museum’s summer events. Hy-Fi was a struc-

ture made entirely of biodegradable materials. It was

a set of circular towers made of bioblocks grown using

a combination of agricultural byproducts and mushroom

mycelium, which in this case acts as a natural digestive

glue. Some of them, ultimately placed in the upper part

of the structure, have been covered with a light-refracting

coating, thanks to which the light reects inside. The gaps

in the brick layers additionally help ventilate the entire

structure, using gravity [23]. The estimated lifetime of the

installation was 60 days [24] (Fig. 3).

Next type of temporary architecture are objects clas-

sied as “exhibition pavilions” and among them are pa-

vilions for World Exhibitions (EXPO) or other exhibition

facilities which are one of the most visible and therefore

well-known representatives of temporary architecture ob-

jects, with the following examples.

World’s fair [as a rst example is a] large international

exhibition of a wide variety of industrial, scientic, and

cultural items that are on display at a specic site for

years. Every year, students participating in the workshops

have a week to make wooden architectural installations

on a given topic and under the guidance of previously se-

lected tutors. In 2014, the leitmotif was “playing with bal-

ance”. One of the ideas that has been implemented, next to

e.g. facilities such as Cornwalk, Playground, SPACEship,

Spikefort and Force, was the one called FAbrik, designed

by MOOMOO Architects from Łódź. The resulting facili-

ty was created using only waste material produced by oth-

er teams participating in the event. In this way, FAbrik was

the result of balance of wasted material ordered for the

workshop. The project assumed the creation of two walls

with a clearly marked contrast between the sharp edges

and the smooth surface of the walls inside the structure

[20], [21] (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. FAbrik, MOOMOO

(Łukasz Pastuszka), Hungary

(image courtesy Ł. Pastuszka)

Il. 2. FAbrik, MOOMOO

(Łukasz Pastuszka), Węgry

(zdjęcie dzięki uprzejmości

Ł. Pastuszki)

Fig. 3. Hy-Fi, The Living, Young Architects Program 2014,

MoMA PS1, June 27

–September 6

(photo by K. Graves, image courtesy MoMA PS1)

Il. 3. Hy-Fi, The Living, Young Architects Program 2014,

MoMA PS1, 27 czerwca–6 września

(fot. K. Graves, zdjęcie dzięki uprzejmości MoMA PS1)

Temporary architecture in the 21

century as an expression of changes taking place in contemporary society 145

which the display element were plastic air bubbles lled

with rare copies of the legendary sneakers. This structure,

combined with interactive events presenting the history of

Air Max’s heritage, was an informative experience for the

customer taken quite literally into the world of the popular

brand [27] (Fig. 4).

Another example of the same type are all kinds of

mobile and food truck stands, which like previously

men tioned mobile houses are treated by the authors as

examples of mobile architecture. In 2011, as part of the

rejuvenation of the market for Lower Marsh in Waterloo,

London, a tiny mobile performance venue designed by the

Aberrant Architecture studio was presented. This unusu-

al structure, based on 16

-century stalls, called Roaming

Market, was made of steel and mounted on the trailer’s

chassis. At the two-story stand, steel stairs lead to the plat-

form on the roof intended for the event space and the view-

ing terrace. Below is a covered seating area with a built-in

chessboard [28].

One of the examples of the use of sea containers for

commercial purposes is PUMA-CITY, built from 24 mod-

ernized sea containers. This portable building, assembled

and disassembled countless times in international ports,

has been designed as a three-level structure, containing

commercial spaces, oces, a bar and an event space with

a large terrace. The facility was designed in 2008 by the

LOT-EK design studio [29].

An object with a service function, often combining a sea

container with an inatable, pneumatic coating in its form

and structure, is an object designed and created in the time

of the COVID-19 pandemic, namely a part of a temporary

hospital erected in Turin on April 19, 2020. The CURA

building, designed by Carlo Ratti Associati together with

Italo Rota, was created in cooperation with and thanks to

the involvement of many people, from medical, scientic,

technical to graphic and logistic consultations. This project

which is […] the rst prototype of an open-source project

to create plug-in intensive care units (ICU) from shipp-

ing containers has been built and installed at a hospital in

a period of time, ranging usually from three to six months

[…]. Since the mid-19

century more than 100 world’s

fairs have been held in more than 20 countries through-

out the world. Generally speaking, these events are called

world’s fairs in the United States, international (or uni-

versal) expositions in continental Europe and Asia, and

exhibitions in Great Britain. The term expo has also been

applied to many expositions in various locations [25].

An example of other exhibition facilities was the No-

madic Museum designed by Shigeru Ban Architects. It

was a mobile traveling photo gallery by Gregory Colbert

entitled Ashes and Snow, built of sea containers and so

characteristic of this designer paper tubes. Despite the dif-

ferent conguration, depending on the location, the basic

elements of the structure remained unchanged. Its main el-

ement was a checkered stack of shipping containers, grids

of metal and paper pipes, and two rows of paper columns.

The building was complemented by sloping sections of

white PVC lling the spaces between the containers, the

roof made of PVC membranes and the natural oor cut by

the main communication route, made of recycled wooden

boards from construction scaolding [26].

Then, among the objects presented to a wider part of the

society, we can certainly nd service and/or commercial

facilities, for instance store interior pop-ups, freestanding

pop-up structures, mobile stands, food trucks or objects

built from sea containers, that have already permanently

anchored in commercial public space, which just like the

previous group of temporary objects, provides not only

commercial but also architectural variability and diversi-

ty. First group, store interior pop-ups, usually with com-

mercial function introduced for a specic period of time

in the interior, are focused on unusual aesthetic solutions

aimed at attracting and surprising the customer.

Pop-up structures have a similar eect. In 2015, the

Nike’s Shoe Box Pop-Up space was opened to celebrate

the world-famous sneaker on Air Max Day in Shanghai.

This space was closed in a large, steel Nike box created by

the London agency Rosie Lee with transparent walls, in

Fig. 4. Nike’s Shoe Box Pop-Up,

Rosie Lee, Shanghai

(image courtesy Rosie Lee)

Il. 4. Nike’s Shoe Box Pop-Up,

Rosie Lee, Szanghaj

(zdjęcie dzięki

uprzejmości Rosie Lee)

146 Agnieszka Mańkowska, Artur Zaguła

Italy. CURA (acronym for “connected units for respirato-

ry ailments” and also “cure” in Latin) proposes a quick-

-to-deploy solution to expand emergency facilities and

ease the pressure on healthcare systems treating patients

infected by coronavirus [30]. The above example demon-

strates the invaluable potential of temporary architecture

as a “rst aid architecture” as well.

“Objects and/or treatments to organize the space”, tem-

porary insertion of a function into the existing volume and

temporary way of organizing space or landscape archi-

tecture represent the next type of temporary architecture

examples.

Nocny Market is an initiative that gives a second life

to the abandoned platforms of the Warszawa Główna

Osobowa railway station and a space created by a project

that combines food, music and promoting a new lifestyle.

Opened in 2016, it was the rst initiative of this type in

Poland, and thanks to its activities in the rst season, it

won many awards, among them: Best of Warsaw, Nocne

Marki, Wdech 2016 or The Architectural Award of The

President of The Capital City of Warsaw. In one place,

the organizers gathered the most interesting street food

and food truck exhibitors as well as music and art crea-

tors. Over the years, Nocny Market has become one of the

most attractive places on the capital’s map, conducive to

gatherings and relaxation in the atmosphere of the fair in

summer evenings [31].

Noma Mexico is the third-ever full-size pop-up of this

famous restaurant. The rst took place in Tokyo in 2015,

the following year in Sydney, and in 2017 Noma, led by

René Redzepi, reached Mexico, where it opened its doors

in exceptional circumstances for a period of seven weeks.

The new, temporary headquarters of Noma was located

between the jungle and the Caribbean Sea and was com-

pletely open to its nature and climate. The aim of this

activity was to introduce new fresh local ingredients and

culinary styles, which is what this world-famous Danish

restaurant is famous for as an attraction for new and regu-

lar customers [32] (Fig. 5).

Landscape architecture, which is an inseparable ele-

ment of every architectural and urban design, has a spe-

cial place in contemporary society. Parklets and other

elements of urban furnishing, which are gaining in pop-

ularity, encourage city residents to use public spaces and

build interpersonal relationships. Apart from “temporary

insertion of a function into an existing volume” and “tem-

porary way to organize the space”, it is also one of the

best ways to activate abandoned or yet unexplored places.

The following type distinguished from the collection of

contemporary temporary architecture is “artistic objects”.

Presented examples of this type include: Serpentine Gal-

leries (Serpentine Pavilions), artistic installations, sce-

nography and other festival facilities which usually deal

with a deeper topic, a contemporary problem and provoke

reection although sometimes they are only an aesthetic

form accompanying the viewer for a moment.

Serpentine has been presenting pioneering exhibitions

of emerging practitioners to the work of recognized artists

around the world since 1970, that is for half a century. In

London’s Kensington Gardens you can see a year-round

program from exhibitions, live events, education to archi-

tecture itself. The Serpentine Pavilion is an annual tem-

porary structure designed by well-known and respected

architects selected by an architectural commission. The

temporary pavilion is open every year throughout the sum-

mer and is a venue for organized events [33].

Installations just as scenography facilities are a com-

bination of elements of an architectural function with the

artistic vision of the designer. The former are often in-

dependent compositions, while the scenery is usually the

background for the organized event.

The Burning Man Festival is an annual festival held in

the Black Rock Desert of northern Nevada. The organized

event lasts 7 days during which the gathered community

Fig. 5. Noma Mexico, Tulum

(photo by E. Sung,

image courtesy

E. Sung)

Il. 5. Noma Mexico, Tulum

(fot. E. Sung, zdjęcie dzięki

uprzejmości E. Sung)

Temporary architecture in the 21

century as an expression of changes taking place in contemporary society 147

Fig. 6. Uchronia, Arne Quinze,

Black Rock Desert, Nevada

(image courtesy A. Quinze)

Il. 6. Uchronia, Arne Quinze,

Black Rock Desert, Nevada

(zdjęcie dzięki

uprzejmości A. Quinze)

Fig. 7. Tetris Hotel, MVRDV,

The Why Factory, Eindhoven

(photo by OSSIP,

image courtesy MVRDV)

Il. 7. Tetris Hotel, MVRDV,

The Why Factory, Eindhoven

(fot. OSSIP, zdjęcie dzięki

uprzejmości MVRDV)

builds Black Rock City from scratch as an artistic form of

self-expression. After a week, everyone leaves the desert,

leaving it in its original state. In 2006, contemporary artist

Arne Quinze built a structure called Uchronia for this fes-

tival. 150 km of wooden beams were used to build this pa-

vilion, and the resulting sculpture gave people a sense of

security. The nal act of the building’s life was its grand

nale, so the author himself set re to his work of art, thus

fullling the main assumption of the festival [34] (Fig. 6).

In 2017, at the Dutch Design Week festival in Eind-

hoven, the MVRDV studio and think thank The Why Fac-

tory created a multicolored hotel in the tetris convention,

as one of the festival facilities. The main theme of the fes-

tival was to answer the following question: what should

the city of the future look like in the face of diminishing

natural resources, climate change and an ever-growing

population? According to MVRDV, the answer is archi-

tectural exibility. The facility presented at the festival

was composed of nine apartments in one of many possi-

ble congurations. Each unit that builds it has a dierent

character, referring to the personality of its user, including

for instance a lime-colored space with a hammock and

ladders or a lemon-yellow privatized penthouse. Enter-

ing this world, one should remember that when deciding

about one’s own desires, one must come to terms with the

spatial needs of others [35] (Fig. 7).

148 Agnieszka Mańkowska, Artur Zaguła

The last of the distinguished types of contemporary

temporary architecture introduced in this article concerns

other temporary facilities and one of the most interesting

are, among others, cubature objects.

In London, a group of architects and artists from The

Decorators and Atelier Chan Chan launched a temporary

dining experience called Ridley’s in 2011. It was a struc-

ture built on an abandoned plot of land at Ridley Road

Market that involved marketers at a nearby market in the

food preparation process, while encouraging gatherings.

By participating in the event, consumers are led upstairs

to a common table, while their selected dishes are pre-

pared on the ground oor, which is also a place to ex-

change products purchased at the bazaar for a meal. When

the order is ready, the mechanical table serves it to the

guests upstairs. The temporary structure of the restaurant

was designed mainly from metal scaolding, wood-based

panels and corrugated sheet. This summer installation

showed a new way of using a deserted space, emphasizing

its value and new potentials also in the context of building

local communities [36] (Fig. 8).

Another cubature project called AEROPOLIS appeared

in 2013 at the Metropolis Festival in Copenhagen. It was

ration with Københavns Internationale Teater. This tem-

porary space enclosed in a pneumatic shell, with an area

of 100 m

, has been designed with two optional surfaces

allowing for even greater adaptation of the facility to its

function. Thanks to its structure, AEROPOLIS changes its

shape, being an independent form or squeezing between

elements of the urban or natural environment. As part of

the festival, the mobile space, prepared in this way, oered

13 dierent urban activities, from kindergarten, through

yoga, martial arts, to silent disco, each in a dierent set-

ting. This temporary form changes the perception of space,

showing its new possibilities and encouraging communi-

cation with others by active participation in planned activ-

ities [37] (Fig. 9).

In this type we can also nd traditional or more modern

versions of yurts, tipis, wigwams, igloos and all kinds of

temporary huts, as well as markets, circuses or portable

restrooms. All known for ages and still just as needed.

As mentioned at the beginning of the article, the pre-

sented examples, which give the basis for an attempt to

classify contemporary temporary architecture, are only

a small part of them. The current press, popular science

and scientic architectural literature are full of more ex-

amples [38]–[40].

Fig. 9. AEROPOLIS,

Plastique Fantastique, Copenhagen

(photo by M. Canevacci,

C. Mantovani, image courtesy

Plastique Fantastique)

Il. 9. AEROPOLIS,

Plastique Fantastique, Kopenhaga

(fot. M. Canevacci, C. Mantovani,

zdjęcie dzięki uprzejmości

Plastique Fantastique)

Fig. 8. Ridley’s, The Decorators, Atelier Chan Chan, London

(photo by Dosfotos, image courtesy The Decorators)

Il. 8. Ridley’s, The Decorators, Atelier Chan Chan, Londyn

(fot. Dosfotos, zdjęcie dzięki uprzejmości The Decorators)

Temporary architecture in the 21

century as an expression of changes taking place in contemporary society 149

Conclusion

The above examples, from the collection of contempo-

ra ry objects of temporary architecture, are just some of

the projects that appeared in our reality and already show

the enormous variety of both their forms and functions, as

shown in Figure 10.

In order to distinguish a new category of postmodern

temporary architecture, we must recall the basic needs of

the postmodern society that we have identied along with

these that are, in a way, a side eect of liquid modernity.

We talked about consumerism, endless changes, living in

a constant movement, need for strong emotions and the

deep but short-term experiences, as well as the need for

closeness and connection. By eliminating, among the

above, the kinds and distinguished types that do not meet

the criteria of postmodernity, we obtained a new category

of temporary architecture, deeply rooted in the times in

which we live. Therefore, in the collection of postmodern

temporary architecture we can nd objects built from sea

containers, mobile houses and mobile structures, store-in-

terior pop-ups, pop-up structures, temporary insertion of

a function into existing volume, temporary way of organ-

izing space, landscape architecture, and other cubature

objects along with facilities enabling the life of modern

nomads. A signicant increase in popularity and the de-

velopment of this type of contemporary temporary archi-

tecture can be observed in the 21

century. Architecture

as one of the services or products has always been tailored

according to the consumer’s needs. The observations show

that the temporary architecture of the 21

century seems

to complement the contemporary world of architecture,

lling the gap that has arisen in it. Permanent architec-

ture that fullls the basic needs of human existence does

not take into account the new “whims” and the temporary

needs of its user. This role is taken over by postmodern

temporary architecture.

Translated by

Agnieszka Mańkowska, Artur Zaguła

Fig. 10. Typology of

contemporary temporary

architecture (elaborated by

A. Mańkowska, A. Zaguła)

Il. 10. Typologia współczesnej

architektury tymczasowej

(oprac. A. Mańkowska,

A. Zaguła)

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150 Agnieszka Mańkowska, Artur Zaguła

Abstract

Temporary architecture in the 21

century as an expression of changes taking place in contemporary society

The subject of the article refers to the condition of contemporary society as a factor shaping our architectural reality. The subject of the consider-

ations is the postmodern society of the highly developed countries of the 21

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contemporary temporary architecture as a response to this kind of social need. This article, based on a study of selected cases, presents the proposed

typology of contemporary temporary architecture, which, together with the analysis of various relations between this phenomenon and the needs of

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Key words: temporary architecture, pop-up, postmodernity, liquid modernity, contemporary society

Streszczenie

Architektura tymczasowa XXI w. jako wyraz zmian zachodzących we współczesnym społeczeństwie

Temat artykułu nawiązuje do kondycji współczesnego społeczeństwa jako czynnika kształtującego naszą architektoniczną rzeczywistość. Przed-

miotem rozważań jest ponowoczesne społeczeństwo krajów wysokorozwiniętych XXI w. w ujęciu Zygmunta Baumana, nacechowane indywidu-

alizmem, samotnością, życiem w ciągłym ruchu i konsumpcjonizmem, uznające krótkoterminowość za bezpieczną formę zawierania wszelakich

„umów”, oraz współczesna architektura tymczasowa jako odpowiedź na tego rodzaju społeczne potrzeby. W niniejszym artykule, na podstawie

studium wybranych przypadków, przedstawiona została propozycja typologii współczesnej architektury tymczasowej. Propozycja ta wraz z analizą

różnorodnych relacji między tym zjawiskiem a potrzebami społeczeństwa ponowoczesnego prowadzi do próby wyodrębnienia ponowoczesnej ar-

chitektury tymczasowej.

Słowa kluczowe: architektura tymczasowa, pop-up, ponowoczesność, płynna nowoczesność, współczesne społeczeństwo

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