Architecture As Material Discourse: on the Spatial Formulation of Knowledge and Ideals in Four Library Extensions
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ITU A|Z • Vol 12 No 3 • November 2015 • 7-22 Architecture as Material Discourse: On the spatial formulation of knowledge and ideals in four library extensions Daniel KOCH [email protected] • School of Architecture, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden Received: September 2015 Final Acceptance: October 2015 Abstract In recent decades libraries have been challenged in many ways, perhaps most pointedly by the digital revolution. Tis is, however, not the frst time – a series of booms in library architecture emerging rather when knowledge ideals are chal- lenged than established allows us to discuss library architecture more clearly as investigations into what knowledge, learning and literature could be rather than as expressions of what knowledge, learning and literature is. Tese questions are complex and multifaceted and require both careful examination of architectur- al proposals and works and a step back to analyse the propositions they make through their formulations into architectural form. Utilizing four public library extensions in Sweden, of which three have been built and one has been rebooted, and competition and parallel commission proposals for their making, this article discusses how ideas of libraries, knowledge, and literature emerge through the mediation of programme, collections, activity, and visitors in interaction, related to other aspects of architectural form. Building on a series of empirical fndings of correspondences between use patterns of libraries and spatial confguration, the article takes this discussion further into what this means for a discussion of architectural principles, ideals, and propositions. Keywords Architecture, Architectural competitions, Library architecture, Space Syntax, Spa- tial confguration. 8 1. Introduction brary in Copenhagen (COBE, 2010), In an interview in the Architectural Urban Mediaspace in Århus (schmidt Magazine RUM in 2011, Annette Gig- hammer lassen, 2014), Halmstad Li- on discusses the practice of building as brary (schmidt hammer lassen, 2006), a way to understand the world (Sing- and the City Library in Turku (JKMM, stedt, 2011). Set in relation to a series 2007), to name a few. Partially, this is a of booms in library architecture, when response to a general perception of an they have appeared and the discussions attack on and commercialisation and around their creation, this statement privatisation of public space (Zukin, seems to make an important point even 1995; Kärrholm, 2014; van der Werf, if it does not specifcally relate to it. It 2010) where libraries have been seen allows us to discuss library architecture as one of few remaining bastions of more clearly as investigations into what the unquestionably public. Tis makes knowledge, learning and literature could the question of what these libraries do be rather than as expressions of what even the more interesting. knowledge, learning and literature is. Te interest here is a set of princi- Tis also makes it easier to understand, pal questions studied through a series one might argue, how come libraries of specifc projects of alteration. Tis have ofen been built not in situations essay will therefore build on the mate- of stability in the views of knowledge rial of four library extensions, three of (or the degree of literacy; c.f. Markus, which have been realized and one that 1993; Bennet 1995), but in situations has been put aside for now. In three of where such is challenged or under rad- these cases thorough empirical analysis ical transformation. of inhabitance patterns has been made, Te recent boom in the so-called which has partially been presented ear- ‘western world’, extending back to the lier (Koch, 2004). Tis material will be 1990s and tapering of somewhat afer used to discuss the relations between 2010 with some notable exceptions, architecture and library use as a foun- has taken place in a situation where dation for a following discussion on ar- not only knowledge is under trans- chitectural principles. It will therefore formation, but libraries and books as be as thoroughly presented as reason- such have been under attack through able within the bounds of the essay, be- the advent or in the wake of the ‘rise fore the focus turns to two libraries and of the network society’ (Castells, 1996) two proposed extensions of each. and the growing infuence of digital Te discussion is deeply informed media (Gillespie, Boczkowski, & Foot, by the work of Tomas A. Markus 2014; Niegaard, 2011; c.f. Bruijnzeels, (1993) and Sophia Psarra (2009) and 2008; van der Velden, 2010). Tis has their analysis of public and cultural in many parts of the world taken the buildings over time as well as Julienne form of a wide range of investments Hanson’s (1998) extensive work on made to build large, central public li- analysis of buildings. It is also heavily braries (c.f. Roth, 2011). While some indebted to John Peponis’ (2005) no- of these projects have been about rad- tion of proposals and propositions in ical transformation of the very idea of architecture, and his and others’ work ‘libraries’, most have largely operated on the formulation of architectural within a paradigm of large institutional meaning (Peponis, Conroy Dalton, buildings and within the frameworks Wineman, & Dalton, 2003) and subse- of alterations of a typology. Interna- quent work on confgurational mean- tionally we have examples such as the ing (Peponis, Bafna, Dahabreh, & Do- Bibliotheca Alexandrina (Snøhetta, gan, 2015). In addition, considerable 2002), Sendai Mediatheque (Ito, 2001), work on libraries through history by Amsterdam Public Library (Jo Coenen e.g. Battles (2003), Lerner (2009) and & Co, 2004), Seattle Public Library Dahlkild (2011) have been pivotal to (OMA, 2004), Chilean National Li- allow a broadened perspective on what brary (A & F Architects, 2009), and the a library is, has been, and could be. Rolex Learning Center (Saana, 2009), amongst many others. In Scandinavia 1.1. A (very brief) historical point it includes the Culture House and Li- To understand the situation library ITU A|Z • Vol 12 No 3 • November 2015 • D. Koch 9 architecture is wrestling with there are tion, which led many of the earliest li- key historical aspects to take into ac- braries to take on a mediating function count that do not always come to sur- as well as becoming sites of material face in the debate, partially belonging production where texts were copied to a typological process that embeds for further propagation. While the (perceived) history and future into the degree of publicness have varied, the understanding of any type at any point artefact holding a text, its materiality, in time (Steadman, 2014; Koch, 2014; storage, arrangement and subsequent c.f. Rossi, 1982), and partially in a ‘si- use thus is arguably integrated in the lent-but-present’ history of libraries very foundation of the library as a type informing expectations, values, and and concept. One can of course ar- choices in their making. Te type dis- gue, as is done in some contemporary cussed in this essay – the public library discussions about libraries, that the in concurrent, European-American so- importance of the book is a practical ciety – is by and large a modern prod- result of the types of media available uct (Markus, 1993; Dahlkild, 2011). within which to store and reproduce However, this type explicitly as well as the content (c.f. van der Velden, 2010; implicitly carries a lot of its precursors Bruijnzeels, 2008), but this rather re- in its underlying conceptual defni- fects a contemporary and not entirely tions conditioning how it is or can be unchallenged view of what a book ‘is’ treated. Te type as it is perceived to- that does not easily translate back to day also casts a shadow back in history how it has been considered throughout afecting our interpretation of the role history. It is in this situation important of libraries historically as well as ex- to not project concurrent view of tech- tends itself into the future. nologies back onto earlier periods and Amongst the historical roots worth cultures and their treatment of materi- reminding of, one seems to be found al (c.f. Lievrouw, 2014). in the etymological roots of the term. Te contemporary public library, as Both the English library and the Swed- emerging largely in the 19th century, ish bibliotek here comes from the root has several roots, including traditions ‘book’ (Latin ‘liber’ and Greek ‘biblion’, such as monastic libraries and person- both translating to ‘book’). While ety- al collections in Europe as well as the mology should be handled carefully in Islamic dar-al’ilm (Lerner, 2009, p. 55- relation to the development of building 66). Already from the beginning they types (c.f. Forty, 2000), it is worth to held an educational and enlightening consider how the concept is specifcally purpose, perhaps most clearly similar tied to books and the handling or col- to the dar-al’ilm, where learned librar- lections of them rather than buildings ians were to mediate knowledge and or practices of reading or learning. Tis literature to a wider populace. Tis ed- suggests that the challenges to books ucational purpose also formulates one raised on occasion goes right to the of many clear links to the university very core, origins and purpose of the libraries, where the university library type as such. of Göttingen is ofen referred to as a In practice, the origins seem to be key behind their transformation from intertwined with various forms of ar- storages to hearts of knowledge, largely chives. Tere is an important origin in attributed to the main librarian Chris- the storage of texts – be it legal docu- tian Gottlob Heyne in the 18th century ments as in Egypt, written versions of (Lerner, 2009, p. 112-119). oral traditions as in Ancient Greece, However, the contemporary public or tenants of philosophy as in China library as a type should also be set in (Lerner, 2009).