Instead of being mainly a weight distribution problem for architects, library book stacks are increasingly becoming art installations in cavernous contemplation halls. This is especially evident in Wolfgang Tschapeller's renderings for the Ho Fine Arts Library at Cornell University, in which an ascending, four-story block of books is selectively accessed through staircases (see header image).
Sou Fujimoto takes a slightly different tack, creating a maze-like series of largely empty bookshelves that showcase the winding quest for knowledge more than the actual books they are ostensibly designed to hold.
So which design is more effective, both in terms of reflecting the changing nature of how we access books and of creating spaces for contemplation and study? Fujimoto has the advantage here; he is designing a completely new building. His agility with blurring boundaries between indoors and out is exquisitely realized, creating an airy, if labyrinthine, experience.
Tschapeller, on the other hand, is working within Rand Hall, an older building that he is trying to repurpose. He must work within the stone constraints of history while somehow integrating an ahistorical concept of information-seeking. Ultimately, Tschapeller's stacks, which shoot up through the top of the older building into a silvery beacon, match the conceptual boldness of Fujimoto's meandering wood and glass journey through largely empty shelving. In these designs both architects have done away with the weight, but not the import, of the stacks.
2 Comments
Tschapeller's library stacks make a subtle nod to another library on the Cornell campus- Uris. Spatially it flips the relationship between people and the books, but still maintains a jewel like quality that is absent in all the other libraries on campus. Given the size of of the collection, to celebrate the stacks is important.
I just wish the interior rendering would be more honest- that building is not as long as the image suggests.
Ahh, the old "field of view" trick...
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