PASSAGES OF TIME
The Passages of Time is more than just a journey through space; it’s an exploration of how time itself can shape our experiences. In this cave-like space, each curve and contour, every shadow cast, invites those who enter to breathe deeply, pause, and reflect. As one transitions from one room to the next, the experience mirrors the quiet search of a crustacean seeking a new shell to inhabit. Each space offers a metamorphosis, a passage from one state of being into another, allowing the viewer to reflect on the movement of time—day to night, old to new, familiar to unknown.
As we grow older, our understanding of time shifts. Children confuse time with distance, using spatial and temporal senses, while adults experience the illusion that time moves faster or slower depending on their actions. But here, in this timeless space, the clock is forgotten. We are free to exist outside the rigid constructs of the past, present, and future, transported by time itself to places unbound by logic—places that feel dreamlike, mysterious, and more fantastical.
In The Passages of Time, the journey is not just about where we are but about how we feel the world shifting around us and how we, too, shift in response.
The conscious principle in this design has been to achieve forms that could create experiences, and that could at the same time welcome everyone’s experiences with the serenity of an effortless development.
Gae Aulenti
The objective of this project was to create a series of interconnected spaces of varying definitions that enable the experience of spatial drama. Relating the spaces to the human dimension was important, as was probing for and honing the potential spatial narratives. A degree of minimalism was encouraged.

