The work of Pezo von Ellrichshausen transitions seamlessly between drawing, building and painting. In each of these mediums, the spaces they create are made of sharp geometries but filled with an ethereal ambiguity. Titled 22105242016 (Patio no 80), this oilpainting would be a pleasant room to wait inCredit:Pezo von EllrichshausenShe was in a waiting room. She was ina hurry but had to wait. It was nother turn yet. The door was closed. There was nobody around tocomplain to. She was waiting, looking around, thinking.There is something intentionally sturdy aboutwaiting rooms. This one was rather small and windowless. There was only the door she hadused to enter, and another to go into theappointment. There were also sixchairs, a low central table and a circular clock on the white wall opposite her seat. There was no doubt it was a room to wait infor the time to come. Before her, others had read the newspaper in this room, taken a phone call or had a nap.She had never visited this waiting room, yet she knew it was a slow room. Waiting rooms do not need much space, but they need a lot of time. They require patience butare filled with boredom and impatience. They are very common in buildings, normally connected with halls and corridors, leading to more rooms. They always interfere with other spaces, destinations and duties.She had an appointment and had to go back home before it became too late. She didnot want to be here. The waiting room isalways a provisional, intermediate stage between anintention and the realisation ofthat intention. This one was tiny but was taking up a colossal amount of time. The time of thewaiting room, she knew by experience, was inversely proportional topersonal idleness. Counterintuitively, thefewer people waiting in the waiting room, thelonger the wait can take. She wasstillthe only one waiting.Waiting is a form of postponing, until something else happens. There can always be hope in waiting, shethought. Waiting is an anticipation, implying a possible future. It can only go inthat direction. One cannot wait for eitherthe past or the present.There is also a degree of helplessness inthe act of waiting. She cannot be totally certain that her appointment will take place.The walls of a waiting room hold anunintentional perversity. The air is thick, even when scented with lavender spray. While waiting, the room becomes a resonance instrument, a silent void despitethe background music.The waiting room is a powerful device: aspace that mandates us to pause. The delayof time is imposed, within a designated room. People waiting in waiting rooms areprisoners of that intention, which has nothing to do with the qualities of the room.Could one really wait before the invention oflinear time?, she wondered. Does my waiting belong to me or to this waiting room? The room was waiting before she walked through the door.Architecture is about duration: a sequence of spaces, and the time it takes to move from one to the next. There are many buildings without waiting rooms, but waiting can take place anywhere. Some buildings are slower than others. Delaying time is one of the primary functions of architecture. All roomsare waiting rooms, she thought.In some way or another, we are all always waiting for something: a text message, lunchtime, the weekend, a family event, thenext project, retirement. Waiting doesnot need a special, designated room.Rooms for waiting in are those that nobody notices: an invisible waiting room, aspace for hopes and dreams, a solid but concealed reality. A dark bedroom is a roomfor waiting in while counting sheep toovercome insomnia. A shower cubicle isaspace for waiting in while hair soaks intheconditioner.The time spent waiting in rooms is the time during which a building is experienced. While everyday life is filled with memories and desires, architecture compartmentalises the limited and always moving linear time ofour existence. We move forward, slowly but steadily, at times hopelessly.Rooms for waiting in can become alienating, yet they also represent a promised land, a wasteland, a marginal corner at the edge of meaningful business. Despite the limited time of our existence, the room is always waiting, as if in a metaphysical pause, interrupting the unbroken chain of waiting times.The waiting room can only be outdone byits domestic alter ego: the living room, aroom for living, for those who wait without knowing what they are waiting for.Explore the good rooms series, a collection of domestic spaces made, imagined or described by architects, curators and writers2025-01-16Kristina RapackiShare