Buildings are collections of organic and non-organic elements, tangible and intangible memories. They have unique characteristics compared to nature, humans, and other material objects.

With very few exceptions, they do not move in space, but they are strongly affected by time. They are much more durable than humans, but much less than stones.

For this, they are powerful, but unmovable, observers. They are always present when things happen around them, and time and actions leave traces on them.

They also form a stage, where things take place in, on, or around them. Notable gatherings, events, performances that happened, are happening, and will happen. In many cases beyond their original purpose.

And indeed, buildings have specific functions, offering protection from unfavorable weather conditions and privacy, for activities ranging from a family life, to world-changing events.

Their appearance is sometimes a work of art, and many buildings are made to impose power, generate feelings, acknowledge labor, and more.

But most importantly, buildings creating links, associations, references. They are constitutive elements of the human world that make our shared existence meaningful, even possible.

How many different ways exist to observe and represent a building?

Buildings, like humans, can be represented through different layers of their physical "body": its appearance captured by visual tools in 2D or 3D, its structure, its thermal spectrum, its magnetic fields, its individual technical elements, its soundscape, its smell, its geographical position, its overall qualities in terms of resistance to heat, cold, earthquakes, and other physical phenomena.

But a building has also a memory, a spirit, a meaning, different for different people.

If a building had a voice what it would say?

This is the question we ask in the #TalkingBuildings game, and we were surprised to see how many different ways citizens find to answer this question, for example in Rhodes, in Samos, in Zurich, or in Graz, and more.

In the context of the CHNT31 conference in Vienna, 11-13 November 2026, we make one more step in the development of the TalkingBuildings game by challenging the participants of the conference to answer this question with as many ways as possible, compiling a wide variety of inputs to a unique performance titled "Listen to the fountain / the voice of the Schönbrunn.

The goal is not produce a professional output, but learn across disciplines, engage with the building itself being the new venue of CHNT, and create connections.

Stay tuned for more documentation on these experiments and let us know if you are interested to use the #TalkingBuildings methodology for a student or conference workshop at contact@talkingbuildings.net.