The ephemeral condition in the contemporary city: three temporary pavilions in Rio de Janeiro

Abstract

In these first decades of the 21st century we live a specific moment of high modernity, characterized by transience in various spheres of social and economic relations, an ephemeral condition that expresses itself in the city and builds new spatial and architectural dynamics. This article seeks to reflect on the relationship between this ephemeral space-time condition and the contemporary society, observing how it materializes in the city. Specifically, we seek to understand how these characteristics are assimilated in architecture in the case of pavilions, one of the most ephemeral typologies in the field of architecture. To this end, we start from the discussion of some authors who deal with the paradigm shift from modernity to postmodernity, to then systematize and discuss the concepts of dynamism, reversibility, flexibility and unpredictability, with which the cases of the temporary pavilions will be evaluated. Finally, we conclude that these concepts offer a matrix with which it is possible to reread urban life, to operate on new ways of designing and conceiving the space of living and exchange in the city, thus responding to the ephemerality of the emotional, historical, physical and social.