Inscribed in between reflections on the Coliseum - the locus of the ephemeral body and the ‘celebration of life’ - and the Cenotaph - the locus of the immortal soul and the consecration of death - we find Boullée’s reflections on the library.  This seemingly innocuous siting is neither accidental nor altogether arbitrary.  It marks a step on a much-traversed historical path and ascribes to the pervasive logic of a powerful myth that the library as a cultural institution and a building type at once embodies and promotes.  A myth that we shall have to decipher at the outset of our quest to design a supplemental library.  One whose logic, in turn, shall become apparent in the course of our investigation into the place and the role of the library within the broader cultural context.

In the course of history, we find reflections on the library intertwined time and again with questions of mortality and immortality, body and soul, life and death, and relatedly, order and chaos.  Yet, the library is the locus of neither of the polar opposites it appears to evoke in reflection.  It falls, as Boullée’s siting already indicates, somewhere in between the two.  It marks their meeting place where Boullée tells us: “one experiences ... those noble transports, that sublime impetus that seem to draw forth soul from body.”  The place, in other words, of a forced displacement, of body and soul enjoined and disjoined at once.  

The place or rather the placing of the library is in no small measure owing to the ambivalence of Western culture toward what the library is a repository to, i.e., the written word.  Writing has simultaneously been the subject of condemnation and praise throughout the history of Western culture for being the purveyor of life and the agent of death at once.  As a device, writing allows the soul to be drawn forth from the body, leaving nothing but a dead, inanimate form behind.  It allows the living thought to leave of itself a trace that, though dead, nevertheless immortalizes the life it supplants and/or substitutes.  In time and through time, the dead live on as the living within the confines of the book in a place that can thus be neither the locus of life nor the locus of death, for the written word kills and immortalizes in one and the same gesture.  It draws forth the life of the living thought, only to immortalize it in a dead form.

It is, therefore, of no surprise that the library, or rather the place it occupies by virtue of what it holds, has been a matter of great concern since the inception of the written word.  A certain order has had to oversee its presence.  As much as the written word confounds, the designers of the library - the institution and the building type - have systematically sought to delineate and order.  As much as the written word defies, the designers of the library - the institution and the building type - have systematically sought to place.

With this in mind, to design a supplemental Library for a rare book collection, we will begin by probing the history of the Library as a building type, identifying its formal continuities and discontinuities in time.  We will account for the stylistic discontinuities in relation to the ever-shifting cultural context.  We will, in turn, analyze the continuities in functional distribution and spatial organization as the attributes of specific institutional demands and requirements whose purpose is the promotion and sustenance of a set of cultural presuppositions.  

A critical re-evaluation of these presuppositions will, in turn, mark the parameters of a new context for design.  A context within which the link between the formal/architectural properties of the building type and the institutional/cultural presuppositions in question could neither be acknowledged nor ignored, neither reinforced nor discarded.  A context within which there could be no intuitive and/or positive re-formulation of the building type in affirmation of the link, leaving only a critical de-formulation of the type in recognition of the link.

The pedagogical intent of this design exercise is twofold.  The goal is to foster and develop the type of analytical skills essential to deciphering the complex relationship between architecture and the culture industry it perpetually serves, i.e., the skills essential to the formation and evaluation of design ideas and programs.  It is also the goal of this exercise to promote a conscious reevaluation of all the subconscious assumptions regarding spatial organization, the relationship of parts to whole, the inside to the outside, the particulars of volume and mass, solid and void, path and place, structure and material, ornamentation, proportion, scale, and others.  This is with the intention of designing a building that, in the end, is all too familiar and yet all too alien, one that is neither a copy nor strictly an original.  A building that speaks silently of the designer’s ability to willfully manipulate the language of architecture as opposed to faithfully re-produce its various speech acts.

The semester will proceed according to the following tentative schedule:

We will proceed according to the following tentative schedule:

    Building/Institutional analysis    August 19- September 5

    Spatial studies and explorations reflecting the above analysis    September 5 - 19

    Statement of intent    September 23

    Site/Context analysis  September 23 - 30

    Programmatic response to all of the above    October 3 - 10

    Design(ed) reflections from the structural to the ornamental    October 10 - December 5

    Presentation proposal    November 14

    Final Presentation    December 5

    Portfolio    December 13

Each student is encouraged to develop a specific building program within the following limitations:

    I.  The project should not exceed 10,000 sq. ft.

    II.  Provisions should be made for:    

        a.  A reading room for approximately 50 readers    

        b.  Shelf space for approximately 8,000 books    

        c.  Office and work spaces for the librarians    

        d.  Public facilities

The final presentation will be treated as a design problem in its own right. You are encouraged to explore the limits of the conventions that pertain to architectural presentation and thereby design a presentation that effectively communicates the issues grappled with throughout the term. The final presentation should include, as a point of departure, the conventional plan and perspectival drawings as well as a detailed Model.

As an extension of the final presentation, you are required to submit a portfolio of your work by December 15. Your portfolio should document your ideas, your progress through the term, and the final project. The portfolio should be submitted via OneDrive as a PDF document for high-resolution print in a folder that contains all the related images in JPG format (maximum quality).

Much of the studio time in the first half of the term will be devoted to group discussions and collective review and analysis of individual work. We will devote more time to individual reviews and discussions in the second half of the term.

Your performance in class will be evaluated based on active participation in group discussions and reviews, vigorous exploration of the issues at hand, as well as analytical rigor and willful manipulation of the language of architecture as opposed to formal reiteration in the absence of a thorough comprehension of all the incumbent issues. The ultimate criterion is the successful completion and presentation of a project that realizes a coherent and rigorous thesis based on a comprehensive analysis of the nature of the assigned problem. For a detailed description of the studio outcomes and evaluative criteria, please see the Studio Outcomes document.

If you wish to receive a grade on your progress at any point in the semester,  send me an email requesting a grade, and I’ll respond.

Required Reading

    1.  Amir H. Ameri, The Architecture of the Illusive Distance, Ashgate Publications,

        Burlington, 2015
            Introduction, pp.1-9

    2. Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics (New York: 1959)

            pp.65-78, 101-126.

    3. Edmund Leach, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Penguin Books, New York, 1974

           Oysters, Smoked Salmon, and Stilton Cheese, pp. 15-33.

    4. Jonathan Culler, On Deconstruction, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2008.

            Chapter Two, pp. 89-134.

    5. Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1976

            “... That Dangerous Supplement ...”, pp. 141-157.

    6. Amir H. Ameri, The Architecture of the Illusive Distance, Ashgate Publishing, 2015.

            Chapter 3: The Logic of Encampment

    7. James T. Siegel, Objects and Objections of Ethnography, Fordham University Press, 

        New York, 2011.    

            Academic Work: The View from Cornell, pp.21-41

Recommended Reading

    1. Amir H. Ameri, The Architecture of the Illusive Distance, Ashgate Publishing, 2015.

            Chapter 4: The Spatial Dialectics of Authenticity, pp.91-135

    2. Jacques Derrida, Dissemination, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1981

            Plato’s Pharmacy, pp. 63-171.

    3. Judith Butler, The Judith Butler Reader, Sara Salih Ed., Blackwell Publishing, 

        Malden, 2004

           Imitation and Gender Insubordination, pp.119-137    

    4. Michel Foucault, Textual Strategies, Harari Ed., Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1979

            What is an author? pp. 141-160.

    5. Nikolas Pevsner, A History of Building Types, Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, 1976    

            Libraries, pp. 91-110    

    6. Michel Foucault, Diacritics, Vol. 31, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1986    

           Of other spaces, pp. 22-27

Reference Reading

Battles, Matthew

2003    Library: an unquiet history. (New York: W.W. Norton)

Berger, Sidney E. 

2014    Rare Books and Special Collections. (Chicago: ALA Neal-Schuman)

Bieri, Susanne and Walther Fuchs

2001    Building for books: traditions and visions. (Boston: Birkhäuser)

Brawne, Michael

1997    Library Builders. (London: Academy Editions)

Bosser, Jacques, Guillaume de Laubier, and James H. Billington. 

2003    The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World. Translated by Laurel Hirsch. (New York:     

               Abrams Books)

Brown, Margaret R. 

1982    Boxes for the Protection of Rare Books: Their Design & Construction. (University of 

              Michigan Library)

Casson, Lionel

2001    Libraries in the ancient world. (New Haven: Yale University Press)

Chartier, Roger

1994    The Order of Books. (Stanford: Stanford University Press)

Crosbie, Michael J.

2003    Architecture for the books. (Mulgrave, Vic.: Images)

Dawson, Robert, Ann Patchett, and Bill Moyers. 

2014    The Public Library: A Photographic Essay. (New York: Princeton Architectural Press)

Eberhart, George M., Editor

2006    The whole library handbook 4: current data, professional advice, and curiosa 

                about libraries and library services. (Chicago: American Library Association)

Eco, Umberto. 

2019    Libraries: Candida Höfer. (New York: Prestel)

Edwards, Brian

2002    Libraries and learning resource centers. (Boston: Architectural Press)

Febvre, Lucien and Henri-Jean Martin

1997    The coming of the book: the impact of printing 1450-1800. (New York: Verso)

Galbraith, Steven K., Geoffrey D. Smith, and Joel B. Silver. 

2012    Rare Book Librarianship: An Introduction and Guide. (Santa Barbara: Libraries 

             Unlimited)

Hallman, Shamichael. 

2024    Meet Me at the Library: A Place to Foster Social Connection and Promote 

              Democracy. (Washington: Island Press)

Hammer, Bjarne. 

2014    Libraries. Multilingual edition. (Dublin: Roads Publishing)

Harris, Michael H.

1999    History of libraries in the Western world. (New Jersey: Scarecrow Press)

Johnson, Alex. 

2015    Improbable Libraries: A Visual Journey to the World’s Most Unusual Libraries. 

            (Chicago : University of Chicago Press)

Laubier, Guillaume de. and Jacques Bosser 

2003    The most beautiful libraries in the world. (New York: Harry N. Abrams).

Lehmann, Dr Steffen. 

2022    Reimagining the Library of the Future: Public Buildings and Civic Space for 

                Tomorrow’s Knowledge Society. (Novato: ORO Editions)

Lerner, Frederick Andrew

1998    The story of libraries: from the invention of writing to the computer age. (New York: 

              Continuum)

Libraries, Association of College and Research. 

1999    Examples to Accompany Descriptive Cataloging of Rare Books. (Library Asso)

Lushington, Nolan

2002    Libraries designed for users: a 21st-century guide. (New York: Neal-Schuman)

Petroski, Henry

1999    The book on the bookshelf. (New York: Random House)

Schlipf, Fred, Joe Huberty, and John A. Moorman. 

2024    The Practical Handbook of Library Architecture. (Chicago: ALA Editions)

Uffelen, Chris van. 

2024    Buildings for Books: Contemporary Library Architecture. (Salenstein: 

              Braun Publishing)