The architectural promenade and the perception of time

As an architectural device, the architectural promenade can be employed to enhance a person’s experience of space, but also of time. The exploration of temporal perception through the lens of neuroscience, and the investigation of a number of well-known architectural promenades reveal two basic types of promenade architecturale: Those that predominantly aim to absence present time by the evocation of memory and imagination, and those that predominantly aim to presence time by the heightening of sensory and emotional experience. Both types shed some light on the possibility of employing time itself as an architectural element.