The permanent values of living and dwelling

If on the one hand there are those permanent values of living and dwelling that are immutable values and even in their primitive formal expression maintain their timeless and transnational character unchanged, on the other hand, the form of dwelling and the way of living itself refer to a very specific context. They depend on place and time in its twofold sense. Of course, we are well aware that the very concept of dwelling brings into play a series of other issues that do not only concern its form. For while the latter is closely linked to the different ways in which the social groups that use that dwelling are structured, we must also bear in mind that the original form of all dwelling is living not in a house but in a shell, as Walter Benjamin writes. Despite, therefore, the formal peculiarities that differentiate their appearance, which consequently varies according to place and time (in its double meaning), what remains conceptually unchanged both in the object of use and in the dwelling, is the respective substantive essence, understood as the primordial and transnational need/capacity of the human being, satisfied through a process of mental elaboration commensurate with the socio-cultural stage of the community within which this process is produced and with which it is shared. To feel at home, then, is somehow to feel good. It signifies feeling at ease in that specific place because it represents and is our home.