Manifesto|of|Complexities
Architecture Collaborative
Description
The project proposes a non appeared library. A building which is never done or it could not ever appear. The Monument of the Archive is infact the mnemonic infrastructure of knowledge. The project, beyond the archive, is a chorographical pose of architectural elements, running through different typologies and possible interpretations for today. In fact, this fragile structure is a variable understanding the future possibilities of architectural libraries typology. Considering the library as a spectacle between the concrete cores, emerging as the Monument of the Archive, a continuous wooden Stylobate is hosting the library under a two level Arcade. The perspective of the spatial entities is revealed in Atriums, where library as an intentional subject is performed. The Atriums are the common ground of the spectacle.
The wooden structure is the amplifier of this becoming: the stage upon which knowledge is performed. The timber skeleton, exposed in its joints and rhythms, is neither mere construction nor ornament—it is a visible chor(e)ography, thresholds of entry, reading, gathering, exposition. Spectacle is not display alone but lived performance: of structure, of archive, of society’s knowledge. The Archive’s Monument stands as a silent backdrop; the wooden superstructure performs. The contrast—the durable core with the mutable shell—is part of the spectacle as an architectural performance, finalized in the presence of the building. The library remembers; transforms; anticipates. It refuses final form. Between archive and event.
Understanding the urban nature of both the project’s site and the project’s program, we see the necessity for accessibility from all the facades of
the site. Significantly, the project renders the library connected with the city’s structure and at the same time with the whole initiative of the university campus. A concrete structure is mainly proposed for the two basement levels and the cores that are emerging over the ground floor elevation. This is in fact a bilateral response, symbolically as the existence of the Archive’s Monument, and towards a contemporary sustainable
construction. The ground floor and the first floor are massively constructed of timber wood, mainly as a monodrome because of its positive environmental impact in comparison with any other structural material. Although timber wood’s construction logic of assembly concludes the proposal’s aspect for tracing time, the Archive’s Memorial stands as the possibility for future extensions, while the wooden part – which mainly serves the program of the library – could be easily transformed or extended not only for further future needs but also regarding the transformative
nature of the contemporary library per se. Libraries, in the contemporary social context, are enduring a critical era, where even the most innovative
proposals sharing nowness are threatened with becoming outdated.
