Time and the City
Cobe Notes / September 2025
The second edition of ‘Cobe Notes - on Paper’ is out, published as part of Copenhagen Architecture Biennial 2025 - ‘Slow Down’. The publication brings an outlet of thoughts, discussions and perspectives around our experience of urban time with—buildings, spaces, landscapes, materials, nature and life within our cities. Get your copy at Cobe Café, Orientkaj 4, Nordhavn.
As the main driver of contemporary life, the city is central to our work as architects. Forming, or in some cases, reforming frameworks for urban culture to thrive requires a deep understanding of each context and its specific temporal and spatial capacities: the combination of historical layers, and the experience of time.
With Copenhagen as the site for our everyday-life research, we at Cobe have experienced first-hand how the perception of time in the city plays a central role in our experienced livability, and vice versa. Whereas in other cities time is primarily experienced through walking, using public transportation or driving a car, we in Copenhagen measure time by the bicycle, a transportation method that has not only shaped the city, but also the Copenhagener’s quality of life. Throughout time and across history, mobility has been instrumental in forming our urban identity and our experience of the city and of society.
“The city exists for the sake of living well.” Aristotle - Politics, Book III (4th-century BC)
Time has a substantial impact on how we think, plan, experience and live in cities. In ancient times, timekeeping was invented to sustain the lives of workers. This ‘invention of time’, quickly became a structural framework for organizing urban functions and the behavior of citizens. How many hours can people work? How much rest, or eventually free time, is needed to maintain health and productivity? Finally, where should people live to reduce transit time? Time became a structural base of urban planning and culture.
“A city made for speed is made for success.” Le Corbusier - The Radiant City (1935)
Since the rise of modernity, car culture has consistently shaped urbanism. And with it, our perception of time and urban quality across scales. Living outside the city but working in the center was suddenly closely linked and made possible by the effectiveness of the car. The Modernist city expanded the discussion of what quality of life meant. From urban spaces to neighborhoods and larger regional networks, our cities began to spread and expanded vastly over the past century. But due to our global health crisis and massive congestion problems, our understanding of what it means to live well and healthily in cities is shifting. The modernist rule is today being replaced by new agendas that combine the fundamentals of walking and biking with emerging technologies and optimized mobility hubs.
“Culture is habits.” Hartvig Frisch – Duty and Culture (1929)
Over centuries our societal norms have evolved through the lens of time and quality of life. Today, time functions as a central form of social coding, often reflected in the everyday question: “How long is your commute?” The relationship between urban scale and time lies at the core of how we design, use and perceive cities. It shapes our built environment, daily routines and social norms. The perception of time through the lens of cycling and the experienced quality of the distance is one narrative, being core to the life of Copenhageners. But once you leave the inner city, the story shifts. A different urban landscape emerges, driven by modernist planning and car culture. This deeply embedded coding of distance, time and perception is essential to understanding the contextual nature of urbanism. And as cities around the world face new challenges of congestion, climate and equity, understanding how mobility shapes society will be crucial for creating more livable futures.
“The time is coming when we shall be able to go where we like and when we like.” H.G. Wells - A Modern Utopia (1905)
Through technology the combination of micromobility, public transport, cars and airborne transport has made everywhere accessible within short time, soon even going to the moon. This maze of possibilities has increased the importance of quality of life within our local neighborhoods. The everyday life has become central to cities and its citizens. The urban quality we design, invest in and build has become the extension of our homes, identity and community. The feeling of belonging, of being part of something and that something being of a certain quality and history. But what does urban quality mean to us? How long does it take for a city to age well? And what does that mean when we build new cities, landscapes and buildings? How do we achieve the desired quality of material and space?
“Only through the city does (wo)man come to a full awareness of time, continuity, and history.” Sigfried Giedion - Space, Time and Architecture (1941)
Time concepts, of the 5-10-15 minute city, for reforming cities into clusters of districts and neighborhoods are constantly being promoted as tools for a more resilient future, where we don’t have to consider commuting time because we live, work, go to school, shop, exercise and hang out in the same clusters. Proximity concepts are seen as contemporary frameworks for designing neighborhoods around the experience of time, in search of a future where our daily needs are fulfilled within short distances.
But to succeed with any proximity concept we need to look beyond mobility and set increasingly high standards for the spatial qualities of moving and living locally - playing, strolling, resting, recreating, and meeting each other. And ask ourselves how both urban and suburban living can qualify as liveable and resilient neighborhoods - where every minute feels like time well spent.