Time-stop
After buying a home, the new owner renovates it, carries out the necessary maintenance and repairs, or installs new items to replace the old ones.
If it is only a renovation or refurbishment, the aim is to restore the old assets to their original condition in order to increase their lifetime and performance. If the new owner considers the asset to be outdated and inadequate in terms of performance, he or she invests in new assets, trusting in the return on the investment in the short and long term.
In both cases the property is treated as an asset and the equipment as assets. These interventions do not consider the property as an organic living being, evolving as a result of the environment and time, keeping their imprints, but intervene in a crude, anachronistic, insensitive way in the flow of time, wanting to see the old as new. Under the name of restoration, they obscure visible time.
To cover up the visible time, the proud owner hires various contractors or, with the help of his friends and family, does the ‘dirty’ work in a squid. These time-consuming works are considered renovations within the property and do not require a permit (see Government Decree 312/2012 (8.11.2012)), such as replacing existing kitchen furniture, renovating mechanical installations, painting, tiling or demolishing non-main walls.
The aim of my Time-stop series is not to treat a property as an object, but to document the time that has passed inside it, which is being wiped out by renovation like a stopwatch by the thumb of a coach.
Zoltán Ötvös