// Lottery \\

/ Arch 201.02 — Fall 2015 \

Presented for Studio Lottery Selection — 8/24/15–2PM — Pratt Institute — HHC

Let’s begin with a quick thought experiment. Consider this statement by Augustus DeMorgan — he was a preeminent Mathematician whose work helped lay some of the foundation for current information theory. DeMorgan said:

“Once a piece of information is filed, it is statistically unlikely to ever be seen again by human eyes. For any random book, a library was no better than a wastepaper warehouse. Take the Biblioteque Nationale in Paris for instance, useful and accessible as it is: what chance does a piece of its collection have of being known, simply because it is there? If it wanted it can be asked for; but to be wanted it must be known. Nobody can rummage the library.”

DeMorgan was trying to articulate the problem of having to index vast amounts of information. Without an index, there is no chance of anything being found.

DeMorgan’s quote was from 1847. That date followed Louis Boulle’s iconic Biblioteque proposal by almost 100 years. Note the proposal is a kind of temple of books — it stores and displays the physical matter of information. It also implies a method of indexing, retrieval and lending.

This lays the classic framework for library design — warehousing, retrieval, and worship of books. The dissemination of information. The ability to quickly find and retrieve an object from an index.

Take the opening of the NYPL in 1911 for example, and note the similar reading room typography while I read a brief passage from their website:

“More than one million books were laid in place for the opening. One of the very first items called for was Ethical Ideas of Our Time, by N. I. Grot’s — a study of Nietzsche and Tolstoi. The reader filed his slip at 9:08 a.m. and received his book six minutes later!”

Presumably someone retrieved the book from the massive stacks located underground and ferried it upstairs. 6 minutes sounds much less impressive when you consider that this was the first ever request and about 50,000 people came to the library on the first day. However, it set the precedent for how to report on retrieving information, because it’s the same format Google uses today.

That statistic should sound familiar, because it’s same way companies like Google and Amazon deliver results when you search for something today. Take our mathematician friend DeMorgan and we have 940,000 results in .33 seconds.

Limit the search to just information on his books and we have 2,830 results in .57 seconds.

On the front page of Amazon it reads Take Your Library With You. They don’t even bother to number how many books the Kindle will hold anymore, because even the model with the least amount of storage holds literally thousands of books.

Oh and by the way, if you do still prefer the physical book, or quite literally any other item on earth with an ISBN number, then you can have it as soon as tomorrow. In New York City, they’ll dispatch a messenger to bring it to you today. And supposedly in the near future your item will be delivered by drone.

So back to our ash pile…

If books are obsolete, and private corporations have mastered indexing and retrieval — why do we still need a library? Or maybe the question is why are libraries not being as aggressive at information management as companies? Or perhaps, why don’t we turn over management of our libraries to corporate interests? We can find information more easily and quickly with the devices in our pockets. We can store more information in our backpacks than we can read in a lifetime, so what good is the library?

These are the kinds of initial questions one might ask when considering a contemporary library. By way of precedent you should be searching for others who asked the of questions in kind that were relevant to their era and cultural landscape AND you should investigate their response.

But we’ve left out one of the larger questions while in pursuit of this nefarious narritive — and that’s what is the civic function of the library?

I’m sure I’m not the only one who will mention this, but it’s impossible to ignore the work of OMA when considering this prompt. Especially the period from 1989 to 2004 beginning with their proposal for the Tres Grand Bibliotheque and culminating with the construction of the Seattle Central Library. In between they also proposed another noteworthy design — the Bibliotheque Jussei — in 1993.

In very reductive way: here is Tres Granin 89’, investigating public space in a library. The final form here, with the public void spaces indexed on the façade.

Developed first through diagramming techniques — viewed in elevation are void spaces carved into the floor plates

Here is Jussei, in 93’ proposing an innovative, continuous circulation, initially developed through physical model making and then refined as a series of drawings and presentation models.

Here is a particularly beautiful example of an unrolled section along the circulation path.

And here in 2004 is Seattle Central, known among many other innovations for it’s analysis of program in anticipation of the waning importance of physical books and the rise of digital information. From their brief:

“At a moment when libraries are perceived to be under threat from a shrinking public realm on one side and digitization on the other, the Seattle Central Library creates a civic space for the circulation of knowledge in all media, and an innovative organizing system for an ever-growing physical collection.

OMA’s ambition is to redefine the library as an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the book, but rather as an information store where all potent forms of media — new and old — are presented equally and legibly. In an age in which information can be accessed anywhere, it is the simultaneity of media and (more importantly) the curatorship of its contents that will make the library vital.”

So, this would be the jumpoff for students who elect my section — a nuanced investigation of historic vs future models of storing and disseminating information AND a consideration of the evolution of civic values regarding the library since Seattle Central.

Regarding technique and methods — I am extremely interested in your ability to diagram and develop abstract concepts, then apply them to propose innovative drawn work. We’ll support these efforts with copius amounts of physical models.

Regarding pedagogy — I see our relationship as collaborative. You’re much more likely to hear me play the devil’s advocate than to spew dogma. I’m extremely interested in helping you develop your own ideas and to motivate you to pursue them. I like the analogy of an editor in a newsroom — While I can’t claim not to have a bias, I will remain open to pitches that are bourne out of conviction and executed with diligence.

Thank you.