BOTH / AND
This project proposes the built environment as the initial language of the library, for unlike books, literacy as a predetermined system of communication is not necessary. We can feel, hear, taste, smell, and see what the library communicates first without the involvement of a book. This understanding of communication varies infinitely with every individual. Thus, due to the elemental nature of personal experience, the initial impression of libraries as institutions of social infrastructure must be accounted for in any creation or development of such a vital establishment for humane access to comfort, knowledge, and storytelling. Beginning with a field and ending with a square, the design of this scheme intends to relay the powerful connection between public access, public engagement, and public play.
These illustrations are visual renditions and conceptual proposals of a Library, influenced by Jorge Luis Borges’ Library of Babel. The library, as an institution, serves as an evidential testimony to the universal concept of human history. Its central vehicle of presentation exemplifies a hallmark of human civilization: language. The definition of the latter is ever-changing, and sometimes ethereal, for systems of disclosure contain endless patterns of organization. In reference to centuries of communication, language as a two dimensional form began as visual shapes; markings set up against a system of indefinite rules, with extensive combinations to convey a myriad of entire concepts and narratives.
