Designing with words_Vol. 2_Analysis by Davide Perottoni

Designing with words Three Libraries for Meran

VOLUME 2 ANALYSIS

Davide Perottoni

Designing with Words Volume 2: ANALYSIS CONTENTS LIBRARIES On libraries p.8

The library of my memory

p.14

Nuova Manica Lunga Library

p.18

Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

p.22

Amsterdam Public Library

p.26

The Aedificium

p.32

PLACE The River p.36 The Valley p.44 The City p.54 The Road p.62 The Castle p.70 The Church p.76 The Field p.82 The Wood p.88 The Hof p.92 The Mountain p.102

SITE

Dwelling in the mountains

p.114

Three Libraries p.122 City Library p.124 Foothill Library p.128 Mountain Library p.132

LIBRARIES

Reflections on program and type

2. ANALYSIS

On libraries

this concept became one of the key elements in defining the crater part of the City Library

A library, the smell of pages and wood, leather from the armchairs – taking care of our bodies while we leave it to travel through the pages1 – and from the covers of the oldest books. Dust and closed air, not suffocating but enveloping. The creaking of shoes on the parquet, rustling of paper leaves and screaking of pen on paper. What a pleasant sound, the tip of the pen caressing the thick paper. The murmur of thought, audible only through this second hand sound. The library, still and silent, moves with the rhythm of the pages, at the green light of the reading lamps. An exponential coffer of treasures2, from the library itself to every single book it contains. Like those chests in tales where every drawer opens onto ten smaller ones in a virtually endless exponential matryoshka. The library, a kaleidoscope of spaces and worlds – real or imagined, written or alluded to – intertwining in each 1 A bed for thought, a place where to safely leave your body as your mind abandons it → each one their own “bodily space”, a nook to retire into → from communal tables to private armchairs and corners, personal space must be safeguarded → from a joint in the construction of the tables and the switch of the lamps (sockets and so on...) to the space of the armchair [sofas are the double beds of this metaphor] 2 Exponential coffer, from the whole building to the single book there is a constant relationship, one being part of and including the other → both an abstract sense of conceiving spaces as part of a (virtually) infinite system of levels and a metaphorical sense of spaces and containers, the library is a big shelf and the shelf itself is a library.

sounds, impossible to deal with through graphical means, are a fundamental element of atmosphere that literature allows to deal with

this description sets the general atmosphere for all the libraries, especially with regards to the personal reading spaces and their materials

Digressions on the meaning and atmosphere of the library

Libraries

Each shelf a promise of knowledge, each book a curiosity to be satisfied. Comfortable angles and solid 1 The library mediates the worlds, times and scales in a container where truth is revealed → mediating by collecting and revealing 2 Physical and mental wanderings meet → in the library physical spaces represents and embodies mental space (Warburg Library) → space needs to give way to mental space and be able to accommodate its unpredictability. 3 In the library as a “bed of thought”, materiality is necessary to anchor the otherwise “otherworldly” experience. Smells, lights, sounds are to be carefully chosen (like the mattresses of the princes of the pea) → library and experience of the book are one thing → that is achieved through materials and atmosphere, each of the senses characterises the experience and needs to be cared for.

see Volume 3, p.144 in regards to the connection between a reading and a place. This has defined a careful attention to different kind of reading spaces in the design

the issue of cataloguing, very important in all times for libraries, defined a fascination for the collection as an element in itself, defining the way in which the collections are handled in the different designs. (see also Volume 3, p.106)

A library, stronghold of knowledge and culture, storage of words and ideas, recorder of stories and histories. Where does the library stop and the book begin? I cannot think of Musil’s Wien without remembering the feeling of the armchair in Querini Stampalia library, or studying history without the cracking of the wooden boards of the floor.3

the merging of physical and mental wandering finds its architectural expression in the forest part of the City Library

other.1 The reader wonders aimlessly, cards and signs, indexes and ordering rules; they all collapse with the first touch of the hand on the back of the book. The fingers, trying to keep up with the eyes, move on the shelves picking this up and leaving the other, accumulating tomes on the side, juggling history and comedy. Physical and mental wanderings meet2, in the experience of the library. A place to go to other places, like an airport of thought; for ancient Greece take room F, shelf B in casement 3 under G. Don’t forget to check in room C as well though.

2. ANALYSIS

see Volume 3, p.106

However, the library is not about reading itself, it is about the promise and the possibility of reading.1 The library is a collection of potential experience and knowledge, ready to be grasped with our hands and free to be gazed upon by our eyes. What is the longest list of books compared to a well arranged collection of few shelves? Maybe with a few lamps and windows, armchairs and tables. Is it more impressive to see a chest of golden coins or an on-screen bank statement? The library is the place where books cease to be single objects in themselves and gain an even higher value by being collected and shown. It is the space where all of these spaces collide, a room with many doors we can open; all neatly stacked on shelves. It is the expression of the collection, not merely the collection itself. A library therefore needs books, of course; it needs to be made of books.2 People are visitors in this middle realm between one world and all the others. Like with paintings in a gallery, books must be visible, they are the ones making and shaping the space. The book is the 1 This promise must be celebrated, through the books on their shelves, they are the jewels on display. 2 The book is the brick of the library → this is metaphorical but it could be made spatial as well; from the shelves being the actual structure of the library to their presence shaping the experience and organisation of the spaces

this expression is one of the reasons for a physical library in a digital age and it has been celebrated in the different designs although in a way that is declined to each design’s character

this promise one of the most important understandings of the library, especially in the digital era we are living in, and it took various architectural definitions in the way book and shelves are put on display. (see also Volume 2, Amsterdam Public Library)

tables, clear suffused light and warm temperature. The whisper of the library like a lullaby, guiding from the conscience of the real to that of the book, like the noise of the tracks guides the traveller towards the horizon.

Libraries

What a wonderful place the library is. A place for repose and for creation, a place of cataloguing and discovering; a word made of worlds, a world made of words. 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; This is a very subjective mental image; it speaks of warmness and stability, comfortable and retired. that is for me because it belongs to the previous century, that is, to the one for which there is a bitter-sweet nostalgia being not too close in time to us but still not that far away.

personal and objective considerations mix a lot, especially in the first phases of blinding looking for a path to take

Reading rooms and shelved corridors, information desks and study rooms; the library creates and entire world. The one of the book it hosts and the one through which we can access them. This threshold, the library, becomes as such very important. It is the place where we leave our body behind while entering in a book. However, since we can never sever completely our connection with it, the body needs to be left safe and quite, comfortable and cared for. That place is the living room of 18th century palaces, with flickering lights and warm colours.1 A place in repose, made for holding us in while we are not really there. That does not mean it has to be bare. As said, it is an anchor, a space to hold us in place while we wonder through the pages; be it by reading or writing. Arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t they the same kind of act in the end? Of course not, but it may be so at least in the sense considered here; a place for reading may also be a place for writing. We cannot then consider the library as a passive container anymore. It holds knowledge not for the sake of conservation alone. Holding knowledge, in a library, means reiterating knowledge and producing new one.

the threshold is one of the key concept that will recur in different forms throughout the whole process

this is one of the examples of thinking by writing

brick of the library.

the first test of using poetry is nothing else than a flux of conscience where the poem for helps in giving a rhythm; the rhythm has than become a fundamental tool to guide the writing of the more developed poems which follow (see Volume 3)

2. ANALYSIS

The wooden boards creek and the dust dances in the blades of light escaping between the curtains; figures and shadows hiding, moving about in a place other. Wood and leather, paper and ink, the library murmurs and breaths dust and light, coffee and breath the library lives and changes. Quite and silent you move around in awe, like the kid in the toyshop the man is amongst the long and high shelves. Tall, thin thick, heavy cheap, leathery and the comic, historical easy, entertaining mysterious, familiar.

Libraries

these drawings came out of writing the text On libraries, they are both an example of the kind of unpredictable engagement writing establish and they curiously remained - somehow unconsciously - in the definition of the main spaces of the City Library

shelves

leaves

yarns

spatial analogies for a library

2. ANALYSIS

The library of my memory

The library of my memory is one and many.2 It is the first library I have ever visited and it is the one of my childhood home. It is the antique and modern ones, the ones I spent my student life in and the ones I visited as a tourist. The library of my memory, like every library, is one and many. Green lamps from high class parlours sit amongst stainless steel luminaries on tables of mahogany and plastic. In the library of my memory Proust sits along Pullman, with a niche reserved for Milton.3 Ceramic mugs 1 I do not mean by memory the ability of reminding times and places but the faculty of the mind of elaborating and mixing its contents – most of which come from experience but they are not limited to that – to create ideas and concepts. (I think as a reference of Rossi and his Scientific Autobiography). 2 This is one of the most interesting aspects of memory as I intend it here, its ability to be unique and manifold at the same time, joining opposites and making the most acrobatic leaps of logic and connections. 3 Proust and Pullman are associated by alphabet order, Milton is the basic reference for Pullman’s trilogy Northern Lights. This is the theme of free connections I noted in other reflections, transformed in abstract concept and architectural metaphor. In this particular case my observation refers more to the interconnection of culture which, although I lack a proper name for it, I believe in and I found in my readings many times. It is a way of proceeding through knowledge and research, whatever the scope or goal, via this way of connecting themes and authors. This mode of connection varies from the most obvious one like finding a quote or a reference in a book to finding a book by chance in a flea market whose subject is exactly the one that you have been concentrating about for the last week. I think for example of Petrarca reading Saint Augustine on his ascension of Mount Ventoux (D. Longo, Racconti di Montagna) to reading Chatwin for research on walking

this ability of the library of pulling together so many different things is one of its main values and it will be employed in creating the atmosphere and the disposition of the collections

the library of my memory is one and many, this text could be considered as a written collage or moodboard

Self-analysis on the theme of the library

and plastic cups, tea and coffee mingle in the dusty light and the damp smell of smoke and coffee after the break in the misty courtyard outside. The lights flicker even if they are still and electric, books and shelves dance in a kaleidoscope of knowledge and experience. In the library of my memory quietness and trepidation cohabit with the same placidity with which Homer sits next to Shakespeare. In the library of my memory vertigo and repose alternate each other with the rhythm of the shelves. The shelves, the books, the tables, the lamps; a base ground that is present and ephemeral at the same time, like a feeling that eludes you only when you try to define it. The library of my memory is a dangerous safeplace. In the library of my memory space and time folds on itself; the armchair of the warm and small reading room is the chair in the main reading hall. In the library of my memory I sit in my room while in the most public of buildings; setting and features are not physical constraints but qualitative ideas. Wood and leather, light and sound are not materials or properties; they are the library and are what the library means, its qualities and features.1 Books are the objects in themselves and they are ideas and thoughts, possibilities… Such a wealth of possibilities that a bookshelf could rival the sublimeness of a mountain peak, with and rituals (B. Chatwin, Songlines) and finding a quote of Hölderlin’s poem (F. Hölderlin, In Lovely Blue) that is been guiding me since I first thought of this thesis. 1 Features are intended in an almost physiognomic sense.

this qualitative ideas recur in the three libraries but are declined according to the character of each

materials are always considered in their poetic and experiential quality, details and technological devices are bent to this primary understanding

Libraries

2. ANALYSIS

this lack of scale is important to understand the lack of hierarchy between the three designed libraries while at the same time it explains the value each space, each shelf, has in itself

Some say vertigo is not the fear of falling but the fear of wanting to jump. Vertigo is the pull of the void, the will to surrender to something too big to grasp. In the library of my memory each shelf is the biggest cliff, each book a foot-board from which to plunge. To plunge into something much stronger and deeper than gravity. Each shelf is a whirlwind of forces, pulling and pushing, you jump into it and, like a leaf in the wind, you let unknown and uncontrollable forces take you on an ever-changing path. In the library of my memory each sit is a parachute, each label a compass marking one of the infinite points of the wind-rose of the library.1 The library of my memory has many dimensions and many scales, different units for different values. In the library of my memory, the Library of Congress is as big as the one in my room. The writer and the reader are one and the same, sitting at the lamp lit table; the atmosphere in the room protects the books from the prying light. In the library of my memory the light is always filtered, the exterior is always other, as if the barrier of the window was a dimensional one.2 The light does not come from the windows, it arrives at the books. It is not the glass the lets the light in but the bookshelves that attract it to them. It is the materials themselves â&#x20AC;&#x201C; 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; Freedom of connection and unforeseen associations; concept, metaphor and spatial feature. 2â&#x20AC;&#x192; The windows and the relations with the outside are a crucial factor.

this play of attraction generated by the shelves will define the architectural definition of the forest part of the City Library

although in an hidden way, the mountains start to appear in the consideration, the other pole - together with the book - of this research

all its cliffs and crevasses, signs and niches, colours and shades.

Libraries

wood, leather and stone – that call the light to illuminate them. In the library of my memory nothing is put inside, everything is pulled from the inside.1

The library of my memory is my mind playing the architect. Designing not realities but possibilities.

1 This needs to be cleared architecturally but the relation outside-inside is crucial; the library would not exist without the outside it needs to isolate itself from, like the monasteries, the first “modern” libraries.

inside and outside and their relation are always a fundamental element which is declined differently in each character of space

In the library of my memory, draped Adriano writes on a laptop while sipping a whisky from a thick crystal glass under a green lamp. Homer and Aristotle discuss of poetics and rhetoric with Hölderlin and Montale. Jumping from Göbekli Tepe to Rome with the same excitement and easiness of the kid playing among puddles, the library of my memory hosts the pure pleasure of the child next to the reflections of the old wise.

2. ANALYSIS

Nuova Manica Lunga Library

“Oh! This is a modern library!” This is the first thing I thought, and said, when I entered in the Nuova Manica Lunga, the “new long wing” of the monastery of San Giorgio. Through two cloisters with an ethereal beauty and calmness you reach the library of the Cini Foundation. First, of course, you need to land on the island – the monastery is an island, always, and this one is on an island – in front of the colossal Palladian marbles which look at Venice as if it has been unrolled in postcard panorama. It is not Venice nor the Giudecca, it is San Giorgio Island, with its church, the harbour, the monastery and the park; and the library, of course the library.1 A long vaulted room, rhythmed by the carving in the volts by the windows above. Underneath the windows, their rhythm is reflected on the doors that used to be for the monks’ cells, dividing now the lower shelves of 1 A procession: boat → island → cloisters → library. The way in which you reach the library and the spaces you come across are fundamental in the experience of the library itself and even in the way of your study. The lagoon and then the monastery hang on you like a particular mood the whole time; the isolation and the quietness of the spaces around create also a sense of calmness inside the library, perceivable through the small windows and the sound - or lack of it - that reaches the room. The approach to the library is as important - in a way - as the library itself. In this case it works as a sort of ritual procession, setting the mood in which you approach and then live the library itself.

also thanks to the similarity of the existing building, this atmosphere can be found in the design of the City Library’s archive (see Volume 3, p.106)

although still a personal account, this text is the description of an actual visit, dealing as such not with mental images and memories but perceptions

Cini Foundation, Island of San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

Libraries

the act of reaching the library becomes from here a central element that can be found in many texts and drawings. so much so that the path connecting the three designs can be considered in a way a fourth design in its own right

one is not the same without the other; better, the path defines the experience of the library, not only in its exterior while approaching it but in its interior as well A. path B. library

2. ANALYSIS

There is light, there is space. There are books and windows, tables and comfortable chairs, wooden, and orientable lamps. Each table is an island, a large gap between one and the next, the library is not highly frequented. The feeling of quietness and reflection of the monastery lingers in the library, it has been kept or maybe it is simply an intrinsic value of this space, like the cloisters and the barrel vaults.

1 Discoveries and connections. Here as well the analogies between mental space and physical space comes to play. The structure of the mind transposed in that of the library, see Warburg’s library (S. Settis, Aby Warburg, il demone della forma).

which is to say, a coffer. a concept that will define all the shelving of the designs

Here as well, like in any library that can be called such, the books need to be discovered.1 The room is too long to be able to include it in a single gaze and the side cells hid offices, study rooms, shelves, expositions. In this case it is a linear discovery, clearly and simply rhythm by the space. The three-mullioned windows underneath a small rose window on the short sides of the room contain the library, like the front and back of a book, a diaphanous surface behind which Venice in the distance reminds of the outside world. Here retire and order, reflection and contemplation; there life and chaos of reality, activity and action. The library is like a treasure chest, a long and narrow trunk.

the relations with the book is always an active one, also in the way one has to look for them

these elements, although not all portrayed in the drawings, have accompanied and furnished the whole design process, being the “bricks” of the atmosphere

the library. Above them, between the windows and the lower shelves, an iron walkway encloses a second level of shelves.

Libraries

2. ANALYSIS

Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana

to avoid this problem the archival spaces and the way in which the books are stored and displayed has been always carefully considered

The first public library of Venice, in San Marco square Hidden between the fancy cafés of San Marco square, facing the Ducal Palace, there is the entrance to the library of Venice. There are books and solid wood chairs and tables; bugnato walls, statues and volts. Unfortunately there is a problem, as with most libraries it seems, the world of the book is not that of the reader.1 For many reasons, no doubt even justifiable ones, reader and book can meet only in the reading rooms. The librarian, Charon of this world, is the one that keeps the connection, like a priest who enters the cell to speak with the gods and comes back with a response, so the librarian accesses this hidden wealth.2 The library is a place of silence, for this reason sound is one of the fundamental components of its atmos1 The Marciana Library in Venice, although designed by Sansovino, is now a kind of antique library much too common. For the user, the library is only a reading room, the rest of the building is for the books and the librarian, a phantomatic creature that feeds on dust, catalogues and the particular pleasure common to any priesthood, the control of knowledge in the name of conservation. 2 The problem in this case is that very often the reason one goes to the library for research is that one does not know what he is looking for or at least where (U. Eco, De Bibliotheca), which makes the demand more difficult or even impossible. Another important factor of using a library is the unexpected findings during one’s quest, which can turn out to be even more fruitful than what one was originally looking for. Again, see Eco’s essay on libraries, which coincidentally I have found in a library exactly in this serendipitous way. The theme, at least on an architectural sense, is again that of the organisation and freedom of access that I believe to be at the base of the library design.

Libraries

Smell though, this sense often forgotten in architecture and the discourses on space, is for those reasons very important. Just like in a market or a feast, the library through its smell advertises its goods. The smell of books, in this library that treasures medieval manuscripts and Manuzio codexes, is the breathing of the library, its atmosphere in the strictest sense. It is not only book smell though; wood and the closeness of many people in a single space for a long time, are all gathered by closed and still atmosphere of the library.2 Finally, touch. I have the conviction that reading a book holding it in your hands or reading it through a screen are two completely different actions, without getting into qualitative considerations. Finding yourself in such a library as the Marciana – in a period when Google digitalisation has not yet become mainstream 1 Materials and atmosphere over shape and style. 2 Of course it does not mean that the library has to be asphyxiating or that its hair should not be controlled and changed; it is merely a consideration on an important aspect that is often left uncovered. The choice of cladding material, for example, should be informed by this criterion as well.

because of the close personal interest and care towards these kind of spaces the description of their atmospheres has always a part of sentiment; this defines a care that is almost religious, indeed the library is seen as the temple of the book, of knowledge and culture

phere. Indeed, it may be the fact that the gaze is absorbed by the book and brought by the mind out of the body in the act of reading and writing that makes the others senses keener and that the image of the library is built around them.1 Indeed the sound then; pen flowing on paper – or the fingers on the keyboard, browsing of pages, steps on the creaking pavement, the movement of a chair or the creaking of a door.

2. ANALYSIS

this and many similar concepts define the deep interrelation between structure and shelves that is present in all the designs

Gazing over the tables you can see people absorbed on big volumes, leaning on book stands among papers and computers. In the library the protagonist is not the user, it is the book. White haired professors and students in t-shirts; philologists, architects and scientists. In the library the action and the cornerstone is the book, the user plays an active part that is different from other buildings; when you look around you do not look at them but at the books they are holding. That is the “cover” that you judge them from. The Marciana library is an entrance and a reading room; that is for the visitors, of course. Even more, the reading room is a closed courtyard, outside the building itself, in a suspended state between comfortable wooden chairs and the rough bugnato orders of the outer 1 Although, like for many other things, the sum of the parts and the whole are not equal. So the library is the books it contains, but it is not merely a collection of books like it could be in the storage of an editor. When they are collected together to form the library, something is born out of this gathering that was not there before. In this case that is actually the story of this particular library, commissioned to Sansovino to create a place where the precious venetian collections could come together and be made accessible to the public. (That is after a tedious half-hour of checking credentials and printing cards. Luckily the tediousness of bureaucracy is somehow softened by the beautiful maps on the walls, prized possession of the library.)

this relation between book and persons is a very important element in the definition of the spaces of the various libraries where this relation varies in defining different kind of reading spaces

– it is impossible not to think about the sheer weight and importance of the volumes gathered here. They are the library and the reason the library is used. It is a very obvious phrase, but it may be worth repeating it: the books are the library.1

Libraries

â&#x20AC;&#x201C; now inner â&#x20AC;&#x201C; walls. It is as if the visitor is just such, a visitor in a building that is not for him. The library is the world of the books, theirs are the rooms and the windows, the decorated walls and volts. The reader visits the temple, asks his question and leaves.1 the library as a temple is an understanding that sheds its light on every concept regarding the library and its spaces

1â&#x20AC;&#x192; In these reflections I think of rituals, of places in relation to the typology, of retire, knowledge and reverence. The library is the temple of the book, a God which often takes the form of knowledge but which has other characters as well. It seems as if this may be the proper metaphor to look at it; I think about Yale library, where I see the books as on an altar around which the faithful gather.

2. ANALYSIS

Amsterdam Public Library The atmosphere of a modern library The Amsterdam Central Library is a very recent building designed by Jo Coenen and opened in 2007. It is a quite big and very modern library. With 28.500 m2 over 10 floors, 1.200 seats, a staff of about 200 and 2.5 million visitors annually it is the biggest public library in the Netherlands. Located east of the central train station, it towers towards the historic city, on the other side of the canal. Its mass and features distinguishes it from the other buildings nearby, it stands out clearly but quite soberly.1 It is not of the outside that I want to talk about though; suffice it to say for now that the exterior of the building marks its publicness and makes it visible along the whole canal, even in the so common mistiness of Dutch weather I saw it in. I will therefore try to analyse and describe those places in terms of atmosphere and experience; in doing so the exterior will come to play in those relations it creates with the different spaces inside, but it is not the focus point of this text. The first impression of the library is that of its light.2 1â&#x20AC;&#x192; A feature necessary to any public building which is, first of all, a monument (intended in the widest sense). 2â&#x20AC;&#x192; Light: whatever the situation it is always a fundamental aspect in the creation of atmosphere and the perception of space; to put something into light is to define it, the way you light something is the way you look at it.

Libraries

characterising spaces instead of neutralising them is a very important concept in which light plays a crucial role

2. ANALYSIS

So bright and white, almost sterile in its temperature and lacking of a clear source and therefore of shadows. It illuminates every surface in a neutral way that makes the space even larger and wider; without corners of shadows and differences of illumination it feels like walking in a digital space. The light makes everything just present, as if its presence was given by the light, as if it was the building itself that was emanating its light. That is actually the case, because the light comes from semi-transparent plastic panels embedded in the stairs, the ceilings, the walls, so that the whole building is either giving off light or reflecting it via the white plaster that covers its walls. Throughout the whole experience of the library, this light is a constant, in a way flattening the experience of the difference spaces1 and floors, which are accessed through the second most characterizing element of the library, its escalators. Leaving aside the meaning of such a kind of vertical connection, it is interesting to see how, together with the light, it creates an atmosphere that is more that of the mall than of a library. It also gives a different sense of scale to the building. From the entrance it is immediately visible the system of escalators and the various thematic floors, so that you get a glance of the dimension of the building as soon as you enter. It may be that it is an association that is going to change in fu1â&#x20AC;&#x192; Differentiation of spaces; to characterise spaces means to deal accordingly with all of their perceptual qualities, something as powerful as light can unite or differentiate space in the most immediate and effective of ways.

Libraries

Going back to the light and the perception of the library, aside for considerations of quality, what I noticed the most in my visit is the way in which the light and the furniture concurred in creating a display-like environment.3 I say light and furniture because they are the main elements defining the areas where the books 1 Some particular objects, materials or settings embody a determinate idea that is difficult to separate them from. This is subjective but shared at the same time. See for example the problems Koolhaas had in putting an escalator into the Fontego dei Tedeschi in Venice because of resistance from the Conservation Committee. 2 man - machine. Nihilism and technique, see E. Severino, Tecnica e Architettura 3 Showing: there are many different ways to collect and make available. A library bookshelf is - or should be - completely different from the one of the bookshop; the function and its requirements define this details and therefore the atmosphere.

the way in which vertical connections shape the perception of a series of spaces is declined in different ways in the libraries, although never with an escalator because of the considerations reported here

ture times, but an escalator makes me think immediately of a mall or an airport – two typologies of capitalist economy.1 The way in which you move on an elevator, accompanied by the ever present light, is that of the machine instead of that of man; I mean by that the elevator creates a kind of disruption in the experience of the library.2 Whatever the considerations, which I admit are very subjective, the elevator has a much more important impact on the library that is its noise. A background humming which is not constant because it gets activated only when people need to use, which is with a periodic irregularity; unlike the background noise create by people this is more difficult to get out of one’s head once it has been noticed.

to design such spaces is the goal of the designs

are stacked, all easily accessible. This accessibility is a very nice one, allowing one to roam along the shelves looking for a certain book or simply letting covers and words attract the attention. The thing that most characterises this experience though, and the one that is most difficult to describe, is the fact that this roaming is more akin to that of a shop than that of the library. The light puts everything “on display” instead of illuminating it. One of the very interesting architectural elements of the library and probably the one I liked the most is its coffer wall creating nooks inside the library and embedded in the overall composition of spaces and masses. Those spaces, with a beautiful view over the city, are inviting to retire in with a book or a notebook. The light is different, their wood cladding makes for a much warmer atmosphere and the space is more defined and contained unlike the rest of the open floor. The differentiation of spaces and shapes, not necessarily with walls but even in more subtle ways, seems to me as a fundamental aspect for a place like a library.1 After all one could read and write anywhere, isolating sound with music and going with the mind into the book; even so, there are spaces that not only allow this act but encourage it in the way they are shaped, related with other spaces and characterised. 1 Space, quantity and quality. It is neither enough nor the goal to give space in terms of functions and quantity only, one needs the place with the action and shape it accordingly, that is much more important than actually “having” space.

coffers and nooks have been designed and tested throughout the whole design process, becoming in a way a synecdoche for the library

similarly to the archive, accessibility and ease in finding things is very important in defining the experience of the library and how it is used

2. ANALYSIS

Libraries

2. ANALYSIS

The Aedificium

symmetry, formalism and symbolism can be found in the designs, especially the Foothill library which takes great inspiration from this text. this book though is even more important, it conveys an idea of what the library is that transcends its formal definitions

From text to space, the library of Eco’s The Name of the Rose While we toiled up the steep path that wound around the mountain, I saw the abbey. I was amazed, not by the walls that girded it on every side, similar to others to be seen in all the Christian world, but by the bulk of what I later learned was the Aedificium. This was an octagonal construction that from a distance seemed a tetragon (a perfect form, which expresses the sturdiness and impregnability of the City of God), whose southern sides stood on the plateau of the abbey, while the northern ones seemed to grow from the steep side of the mountain, a sheer drop, to which they were bound. I might say that from below, at certain points, the cliff seemed to extend, reaching up toward the heavens, with the rock’s same colours and material, which at a certain point became keep and tower (work of giants who had great familiarity with earth and sky). Three rows of windows proclaimed the triune rhythm of its elevation, so that what was physically squared on the earth was spiritually triangular in the sky. As we came closer, we realized that the quadrangular form included, at each of its corners, a heptagonal tower, five sides of which were visible on the outside—four of the eight sides, then, of the greater octagon producing four minor heptagons, which from the outside appeared as pentagons. And thus anyone can see the admirable concord of so many holy numbers, each revealing a subtle spiritual significance. Eight, the number of perfection for every tetragon; four, the number of the Gospels; five, the number of the zones of the world; seven, the number of the gifts of the Holy Ghost.

Libraries

geometry and composition schemes

plan scheme library maze

squares and circles

reading rooms

octagons

heptagons

kitchens and storages

PLACE

Analysis of the site through the characters of its territory guided by literary examples

2. ANALYSIS

The River

because of its importance and of the urban situation created around it the river has partly defined the location of the City Library and largely influenced the various visits to the area

Adige, Passirio and the memory of glaciers One of the most important elements of the area of Meran, as for the whole alpine region, is the river. In the case of Meran there are two, the Adige and the Passirio; they meet at the edge of the city, which is located in the triangle created by the two rivers and the mountains. Water is always a feature of civilisation and most important cities are deeply connected with the river they were founded upon. This is true for Meran, whose centre runs parallel to the Passirio river that divides the historical part of the city from its southern and more recent expansion. The banks of the Passirio are sided by two promenades, a winter and summer one according to their exposition to the sun; this division of the two sides of the Passirio in terms of seasonal use already tells us something about its importance in the life of the city. It is a very important axis of the city and it has been for a very long time, as the many different buildings show. Along its banks the city as well as its inhabitants gather, as if it was a Parisian boulevard. Big silver poplars on the right side, that of the historical centre, shade inhabitants and tourists alike in their daily strolls; buildings proudly show themselves, as if parading along the river. Although the river runs through the centre of the

Place

2. ANALYSIS

city and its occupation is very city-like, the atmosphere is very distinct and characteristic of this space. It is a buffer between city and nature in a way, being amongst important buildings and at walking distance from any given point in Meran while at the same time keeping a distance from it. The most important element for the creation of this particular atmosphere is the sound of the water flowing by over the round limestones brought down from the mountains. Although the river is not particularly big, the high mountains around with their incredible wealth of torrents and streams make it quite swift and powerful, so much that the sound of the water drowns any other sound that is not the bells of the many churches around. In this situation the sound of the river becomes a sort of white noise after a while, which does not attract attention in itself but suspends concentration and thoughts on a sort of abstract level. It is easy then to imagine Kafka walking along this banks with a notebook in his hand, or Empress Sisi and her court strolling along the park in the northern part with its exotic plants. Of course now next to the 19th century palace they have built a very modern hotel, apartment buildings with the usual shallow aesthetic of the 60s and 70s are placed next to neo-gothic buildings and Roman style bridges. Thanks to the atmosphere created by the river though, the surrounding city is felt at a distance. The presence of the river, with its light, movement and sound along with the trees and the packed ground path

Place

2. ANALYSIS

brings the wanderer to a kind of suspension; we are in the middle of the city but we are looking at it from the outside. The river, while creating this kind of suspension, is what unifies and structures the city, both in an urban fabric and social sense. Its orientation organises the buildings along it and as a reflex the ones beyond as well; what in other European city is made by the wide Hausmannian roads in Meran is achieved by a simple organisation of the city along its river. Just like the buildings, people of all kinds meet along the riverbanks as well. From the beggar to the lawyer, tourists and seniors, families and loners are together here with the same placid acceptance of the neo-classic hotel next to the steel and concrete apartment building. Thanks to this quite diversity ten minutes along a bank of the Passirio will give a more complete impression of the city then a day looking at its pictures. On a larger scale, the Passirio is less important and we have to turn our attention to the Adige River, the one that has shaped the valley of Meran and the backbone of the whole region. Deep in its banks, it placidly runs through the valley with lazy bends along its flat surface, which before the colonisation of man was all the bed of the river. It gives abundant water to the various town and villages that are always located next to it and it is the reason of the agricultural richness of the place. More in general, the system of water running through

Place

the city and its rivers

2. ANALYSIS

because of its importance, the river and water in general will recur in these volumes in different forms

the region â&#x20AC;&#x201C; lakes, rivers, torrents, streams, glaciers, etc â&#x20AC;&#x201C; is the shaper of the region itself; you can easily understand the topography of the mountains around just by looking at the water system of rivers, torrents and streams. They are the instruments of time for carving these places and making them how they are now; it is a process that takes a time not comparable to the human one but sometimes it has deep influences on it as well, floods and landslides are part of legends as well as history. The water is therefore an element through which is possible to read the landscape and understand its working as well as the relation between landscape and dwelling.

Place

view of the Passirio river in the city centre

2. ANALYSIS

The Valley Meran, a crossroad of valleys

Antonio Manfredi, an Italian poet and painter who lived in Meran and wrote about it is the guide that leads through these valleys. his figure has been employed as an alter ego (see Volume 3, p.4) and the translation of his poems was an important part of the analysis of language and its powers

And yet the flame of the day stands high over the mountains where clouds kindle hope and sky. Antonio Manfredi, Annamaria 1961, from Itinera The city of Meran is at the end of the wide and flat Adige valley, taking the name from the main river of this region and one of the most important in northern Italy. The river comes from north-west, from the Venosta valley, where mountains are closer and steeper and the valley mutates from the wide flat plane typical of the valley created by a glacier to a narrower kind carved between the mountains by the flow of the river over centuries. These are the two kind of valleys to be found in this alpine region, the main ones “U” shaped carved by the glaciers of the ice age and the “V” shaped lesser but way more numerous valleys with their river fed by torrents running down the slopes of the mountains. The spring of the Adige is not far away and the wide and flat valley sided by gently sloped and bulky mountains is quickly substituted by a narrow valley made of alpine fields, forests and peaks of rock and snow at the top. Similar to the Venosta valley are two other valleys that meet in Meran. One is the Passiria valley, which gets the

Place

2. ANALYSIS

Meran in fact is at the end of the “civilized” region. Here the main train stops as well as fast roads, we are at the border between the culture of the city, of the valley, and that of the mountain. In Meran the two natures of this region are face to face, they meet in the city and from this advantageous point of view we get to observe them both. On the south, the wide flat valley, sided by gentle slopes kissed by the sun and covered in agricultural fields – mainly apple trees at the flat bottom and vineyards on the gentle slopes. On the north, the alpine valleys with their steep sloped covered in woods and meadows until the rocky peaks at the top. It is not only a change of scenery, life of man and its relation with places is very different. In the main valley you can see the presence of man controlling and shaping nature and its features, taking the place and mounding it to its wishes and needs. In the secondary valleys and the mountains around his presence has to make place for itself in a reign that is still that of nature, although the colonisation and presence of man is almost a thousand years old. The view of the valleys from the basin of

the three libraries give an architectural shape to these differences, especially the foothill library that acts as the pivot of this - and other - duality

this double nature of the landscape in Meran is a very important element for the choice of the site and has defined the nature of the libraries

name from its river that crosses Meran and jumps in the Adige river at the borders of the city. The other is the Ultimo (last) valley, running to south-west; similar to the Passiria although of a harsher mountain nature. We find here one of the first suggestions of names; this valley, a typical alpine valley, is in fact called val d’Ultimo, the valley of the last or the last valley.

Place

the Adige valley to the south

2. ANALYSIS

Meran works as one with the peaks that surround them. They indicate the way to unknown, harsh, mountainous paths that will lead in the hearth of the mountains, and eventually to those majestic peaks whose presence is as much ideal as real.

although not yet defined here, the threefold landscape starts to appear (see the last section of this volume)

Although Meran is at a crossroad between two kind of alpine landscapes and two completely different relations with the mountain, its proper valley is that of the Adige, which ends here in the city. This valley starts here and continues for the whole region, keeping more or less a southbound path until it clears the mountains and emerges in the flatlands of Verona. The sign of the last ice age and its glaciers are clearly visible here; from the actual marks on the rock to the shape of the valley and its siding mountains, which look more like hill compared to the rocky peaks in the background. The valley is very gentle, completely flat at its bottom it starts to rise on bulky hill-mountains covered in fields wherever man reached. These hill-mountains that mark the valley have a character of their own, although not as fiercely sublime as the higher peaks, their bulk and shape is that of a quite soberness, the mediation between the lush flats and the bare jagged higher mountains. They create a gentle enclosure, which at times gets many kilometres wide and at other closes in, all in a very fluid movement like the one of the water which has created it. Among the fierce and barely occupied mountains, the Adige valley looks like a cradle of lushness, civilisation and cul-

Place

the Venosta valley to the north

ture. It is the second world of this alpine territory; that of agriculture, culture, princesses and artisans. When the light hits the valley, all of the autumn colours of forests and fields seem to fire up. Amongst them the silver snake of the river, wide and calm, touches city and village, deep in its banks sided by trees. The mountains and the river are the two elements that define this territory, both giving it a clear direction and orientation, gathering and guiding the gaze as much as the life that takes place within them. The mountains with their sober and material presence, form a cradle in which life takes place and thrives. On the slopes, every house keeps this orientation, facing the centre of the valley and conveying this sense of gathering of the valley along the river. As the sun makes its course through the sky, the gentle slopes of the mountains are moulded by the light, thanks also to the rich texture given by the vineyards, in an ever-changing manner. There is no line between shadow and light, only an endless gradient of variation as the gaze goes up the valley and down to the other side. Thanks to the flatness of the valley and its width it is fairly lit during the day, even in winter, at least in comparison with other alpine situations â&#x20AC;&#x201C; this is one of the reasons for the particular microclimate which has made Meran famous. Even so, the mountains around cast their mighty shadows defining clear areas of light and dark at morning and evening. This gives place to a particular situation of light when in the centre of the

the orientation being a mix between cardinal points and landscape features defines the way in which the designs are located on their sites and the general way in which the whole site is approached

this idea of lushness, connected with the south, has created an understanding of the valley and its orientation that influenced the designs and the way they relate to it

2. ANALYSIS

Place

the valley of the Adige going south

the orientation and the exposition to the sun is not considered only in plan but in elevation as well

2. ANALYSIS

valley where most of the towns are. The valley gets shadowed by the nearby mountains but the higher part of them, in the east at the evening and west at morning, is not covered by the shadow which reaches their top only at dusk when all light is gone. In this way, even though the sun does not shine directly on the valley, light is still present for a long time after the sun has gone behind the mountain. The lit mountains, besides reflecting light on the valley, become in this way an almost surreal scenery, illuminated by an invisible source, with all the subtleties of colour and intensity of the first and last light. Like a place out of a different world they tower around the valley, enclosing it like a golden crown whose rock and snow is on fire. Even in a cold day, it is a warming goodbye of the sun and a reminder of the essence of these mountains and their interrelation with the life of the place.

Place

sequence of sections from north to south in descending order

2. ANALYSIS

The City Notes after a late autumn visit Mountains, trees and the river. As you approach the city it is like the valley is guiding you towards it. The bulky shapes of the lower hills anchoring the high alpine peaks; silent observers, covered in mist and snow. They are the crown of the city, its orientation towards the north and formed by and according to the other element that shapes this landscape, the rivers and torrents. Today is a particularly misty day, the sun just a brighter spot of clouds; shades and shadows are subtle and bluish-grey, like the Alps in the background. This misty colouring gives a poetic depth to the mountains, from foreground to background. The eye can follow the peaks along the valleys of the Adige and Passirio rivers, shaping the landscape from the far above towering peaks to the sound of the water along the calm riverside walk that divides the city in two. One of the most characteristic elements of the city and its “pin-points” are the bell towers. Typical of these northern areas, they are – along with bow windows and hofs – the essence of Tirol architecture. So steep and pointy, like needles piercing the sky, they seem to dialogue with the peaks they stand out from. There is no technical reason for such a needle-like shape; surely the snow could be taken care of in a more gentle way like

Place

shape and form are never defined by functionality alone, certain buildings have a symbolic value that transcends theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re function while still arising from it

2. ANALYSIS

the other buildings do. No, it is this dialogue they talk of to me; they are the peaks of the city, like the rocky ones are for the landscape. Literal, theological and geographic. Among them, like the lower mountains, bulky buildings full of a sober solidity anchor the city to the ground. So much so, here in Meran, that the arcades â&#x20AC;&#x201C; pride of the city and attraction of its tourists â&#x20AC;&#x201C; transform the city in a series of tunnels. Low volts of white plaster and pillars like roughly shaped trunks of stone, the landscape is revealed only through quick glances between buildings, exploding in its sheer beauty. Sublime and uncanny, the mountain pulls and contains. It is the attraction towards the infinite they represent, scary but irresistible, they are not a merely physical presence. Even by walking a minute in the city the view of a peak changes, its relation with the roof and the mountain follows your movement. In the north this jagged wall is like a curtain disappearing in the mist; the symbolic and literal border of Italy, even though this is hardly Italy anymore. Toward the south instead the valley is open, no peaks but big, bulky and forested lower mountains; they open in the sun, their contours made unclear and soft. In the north, the barrier of the peaks and the pull of the sublime; in the south, the flowing of the river and the valley, the promise of the south, lush emerald fields. In this sense, this is a crossroad. Up to Meran the valley is open and flat, last sign of the ancient glaciers of the ice age; filled with

Place

the arcade street cutting through the centre

2. ANALYSIS

In these kind of misty days, the landscape looks like a watercolour whose contours mingle and melt with each other, at the same time flat and infinitely deep. The valley is like a cradle whose sheer force justifies the city within. In this weather there are two parts of the landscape, the city with its colours and brightly coloured trees, and the landscape in its infinite shades of blue. City and country, man and nature. But this is not a relation of peers, man is shaped by nature and fights for a place within it. Nature was and will be here before and after man. But then, are mountains and their valleys not the physical evidence of the difference between man time and nature’s? This relation is declined in many ways throughout the

the City Library gives place to this crossroad, both in program and composition

greenery and sided by gentle slopes with meadows and low forests, big canopies whose colours change with the seasons. In Meran there is a crossroad, quite literally so because of the two rivers that meet here, the Adige and Passirio with their valleys. Those valleys north of Meran are no longer so open, the carving of the mountains has been done more by the rivers than the glaciers. The rivers meet in the city – much like many other similar cities in the region – whose two sides, north and south, are opposite in nature. In the north the gentle slopes with seasonal forests and meadows are quickly – that is for the eye at least – taken over by alpine forests and then sheer rock and snow, up to the higher peaks whose blue hue melts with that of the sky.

Place

view to the north (above) and to the south (below)

the City Library, leaning on the archetype of the Palace, follows these observation to integrate itself with the existing context

2. ANALYSIS

city and its buildings, which can roughly be divided into three very wide categories, the medieval one of the centre, the 19th century one of palaces and villas and the modern one of public buildings and residential extensions. What is common amongst such different categories and styles is the elemental solidity of form and the soberness of style; from the squareness and thickness of the medieval buildings in the centre to the abstract geometricity of the most recent buildings the city is pervaded with this sense of stability and soberness that is usually associated to the character of the inhabitants of these places. Even in the most extravagant experiments of the 19th century it seems that this genius loci is always present, from the polite distance kept by people to the cleanliness of the place.

Place

the mountains seen from the city

2. ANALYSIS

The Road

The city of Meran became famous throughout the 19th Century thanks to its climate and landscape, which made it a perfect place for the then very diffused sanatoriums against tuberculosis. In 1870 Empress Elisabeth of Austria first arrived in the city with her sick daughter. The success of the princess recovery and the favour accorded to the place by Sisi made Meran famous throughout Europe and inaugurated a rich period of culture and high-class tourism, putting Meran on the map of the continent. Much of the image of the city nowadays is a result of it being a small but highly considered centre of the Alps at the turn of the century. Namely, two things are still existing and defining the character of the place: the end of the century palaces, hotels and villas spread around the city and making most of its main buildings, both private and public; the promenades in and around the city, exploiting the beauty and accessibility of the landscape and its healing powers for body and spirit. Now, more than a century after Empress Sisi chose Meran for her daughter recovery, the region is again heavily relying on tourism, although of a different kind, resulting in adaptation and extension of the features set forth by the first “cultural renaissance” of Meran. The

this meant that a large number of persons of culture of the time visited Meran and wrote about it - for example Franz Kafka and Stefan Zweig providing a good number of useful descriptions and literary inputs

this system of paths tying the landscape to the city is the infrastructure on which the “fourth project” - the connection of the three designs - rests and the historical reason behind the division of the library in three separated buildings

Sanatoriums: music, conferences, theatre and promenades

Place

2. ANALYSIS

this characteristic reinforces the connection between the lushness of the valley and its connection with the idea of south, in opposition to the mountain peaks, embodiment of the idea of north

palaces are turned into high-end hotels or divided into cheaper rent apartments and B&Bs. The promenades are the most interesting element of this discourse. Although the people walking on them are no longer aristocrats and bourgeois with lung problems, their nature has scarcely changed. They are a place where both inhabitants and tourists go to find quite, have a chat while digesting lunch, enjoy the landscape and the mountain atmosphere; all in a context that is neither city nor wilderness. There is a characteristic that immediately jumps to mind when you stroll along those paths, a reminder of that 19th century culture that is no longer. I mean by that the exotic vegetation that along these paths mixes with the autochthon alpine one. Suspending for now the judgement on whether it makes any sense to plant a palm tree in the middle of the Alps, this melting pot of species creates an uncanny, although not disturbing, atmosphere. How surprising it is to see a cactus plant thriving on a rock suspended over a canyon whose water comes straight from perennial glaciers, surrounded by pine and fir trees. It creates a surreal sense of suspension between two realities when framing a mountain peak with your camera and finding palm trees in the same shot. This is not though, or so I like to believe, a free whimsical motley of plants arranged for the sake of bewilderment. What saves this peculiar setting is a subtle work

Place

Tappeneimer promenade

2. ANALYSIS

this act of tying has been expanded at the landscape scale with the three libraries and their connections, thus enveloping and tying together the different realms of the landscape

of labelling each species you find on the path, simple steel panel with Latin, German and Italian name of the plant. In this way it is as if a classroom of botanic has been brought out in the landscape, exploiting the beautiful views and the special climate which allows palms and cactuses to grow at the shadow of mountains over 3000 meters high. Aside from these considerations, the paths, or promenades, are what ties the city with the landscape. That is both in a formal and experiential way. On the first level, the two winter and summer promenade are the conjunction between the built city and the Passirio River running through it. Beautiful and majestic silver poplars stand along the right side of the river, that of the city centre. While walking on this path you can feel the connection between city and nature, the sound of the river on one side and the view of the building on the other. All mediated by the atmosphere created by the trees, as if they were organic arcades merging the city with its river. Many important buildings of Meran can be found along the Passirio promenade, from a neo-gothic Evangelic church to the modern spa and hotel building. The promenade is the showcase of the city, both in its architectural and social composition. Following this path you can get onto others, different promenades that wander in the parks and hills around the city; they are the real connectors of the built environment with its natural

Place

the promenades tying the city to the landscape

2. ANALYSIS

surroundings. That makes it easy in a few minutes over a gentle packed ground path to reach different point of views over the city and the whole valley. As you walk along these paths, letting the sounds of nature and the view guide you around, the presence of the valley and its mountains becomes evident, it is felt.

through them the libraries exit the city and cover the landscape

Thanks to these promenades, the city of Meran expands physically and ideally into the landscape.

Place

view of Meran from a promenade

2. ANALYSIS

The Castle

the castle is the archetype of reference - along with the church - of the Foothill Library; its mode of occupying the territory is the one that informs the settlement of the Foothill Library

Controlling the territory and orienting settlements The South Tyrol province has 95 castles on an area of 7.400 square kilometres. They reflect the history and structure of this region whose medieval colonisation had defined the character and atmosphere of this piece of Alps. The castle, along with the alpine orography of the area, has been the structuring element of the colonisation and has defined the way in which the valleys and the mountains are occupied and looked upon. The castle – along with its mountain/peasant/agricultural relative that is the Hof, the mountain farm – is the most genuine expression of the genius loci. Because of its functional constraints – military control, logistics, relations with resources and dwelling – the castle reveals the structure of the landscape. Its location and its relation with other castles, all part of a region wide network, reveals the structure of the landscape and its meaning to man. That is what it means that the castle controls, structures and gathers. The gathering here is probably the most important concept defined by the castle, resulting from the previous two. Indeed the main function of a castle is the control of the landscape, for this reason in every place, with different typologies, castles and military control points are always placed in the best points of observation, the best place in the valley in our case. When the castle is set into a bigger net-

Place

work this way of control, of strategic placement becomes even more evident and it defines a structure of the place. Those points in the landscape and their connection reveal the human organisation of the landscape and its inner structure; they cover valleys with their rivers and roads as well as fiends and towns. The hierarchy of the castles and their disposition reveals a balance in the landscape and its values, the points of connection and the modes of access. Finally, the castle gathers the landscape and its occupation. It gathers the human and the natural values of the landscape and gives them a structure and a hierarchy of relations. The concept of gathering implies that natural meanings are brought together in a new way, in relation to human purposes. Natural meanings are thus abstracted from their natural context, and as elements of a language they are composed to form a “new”, complex meaning which illuminates nature as well as man’s role within totality. (C. Norberg-Schulz, Genius Loci) Continuing with Norberg-Schulz “things gather world and thereby reveal the truth.” That is the gathering of the castle in the landscape, the setting-into-work of truth. It is the deep meaning of dwelling in its relation to place, literally giving shape to the meaning of the place and thereby grounding it in and through building. In the Castle, just like in the Hof, the place is expressed in a building and the whole landscape can be read in this setting forth. The castle speaks both of isolation and connection, in its retreat on an isolated and elevated

although both castle and hof do gather they do so in a different way; the hof is the archetype of reference for the Mountain Library (see following texts and Volume 3)

this act of gathering - taken both from Norberg-Schulz and Heidegger - is the one that defines the Foothill Library

2. ANALYSIS

Place

Tyrol Castle overlooking the valley from its throne of rock

2. ANALYSIS

It should be clear by now then, that the meaning of the castle is a manifold one where culture, nature, society and meaning are all expressed in different ways, from the functional one of military control to the philosophical one of gathering the meaning of place into a building in order to take possession of the place in both an intellectual and practical way. Just like the Roman cardo-decumano system of urbanisation was both the practical and theoretical mean of colonisation throughout the whole empire, in the same way the castle works in South Tyrol. The difference, and it is a huge one, is that although the castles are superimposed on the landscape just like the cardo-decumano, this imposition is not an abstract one, unvaried from Syria to Spain in the Roman case, but it reveals the inner structure of each place as it was understood by man and shapes it into the building

this connection with the ground is a very important element in the definition of Foothill and Mountain Library which has been worked out in section and in their material definition

spot for defensive reasons and in the network it creates with the other castles and the towns. In the best examples it seems to be born out of the rock it rests upon, building and ground are welded into such a tight relation that the two things cannot be told apart. It sheer presence, thanks to this spectacular â&#x20AC;&#x153;birth out of the groundâ&#x20AC;? and its location, is felt on the valley and the castles become fixed points of a structure that merges human and natural landscape. Thanks to this structuring the place can be grasped and understood, a result of the strategic control of the castle, and man can therefore make the landscape his own.

Place

and its location. This revealing, which is the truth of gathering, is the real value of the castle and it can be found in all of its facets, from the view over the landscape to the structuring of fields and towns. The castle, expression of the genius loci, gathers the landscape around itself and reveals its meaning.

2. ANALYSIS

The Church

this ritual procession which was very important for the mountain farms (A. Gorger, Gli Eredi della Solitudine) has informed the understanding of the connection of the three libraries which is understood as a fourth project

Social gatherer and pin-point of towns In lovely blue the steeple blossoms with its metal roof. Around which lies most loving blue. The sun, high overhead, tints the roof tin, but up in the wind, silent, the weathercock crows... F. Holderlin, In Lovely Blue Churches are the fulcrum of a community, or at least they used to be. Especially in a place like South Tyrol where cities are very few and settlements are mostly more of the isolated kind, the church plays a crucial role in social matters and in shaping communities. For the inhabitants of the hof, the church used to be one of the main reasons to descend from their mountain isolation into the different world of the valley. For the dwelling in the foothills, the church is the only sign of gathering between the spread farms, close to each other but separate and independent. In the valley the town is marked by the church and its bell tower; located usually on the main square, it gathers the buildings around itself. Their steeples create a sort of skyline, physical pinpoints marking the different settlements and creating a kind of visual relation among them, in a way similar to what the castle does. Their shape is very characteristic,

Place

2. ANALYSIS

the gathering of the church and that of the castle have been merged in the Foothill Library whereas the Mountain Library re-establishes the gathering of the church but it inverts the relation mountain-valley

sharp as needles they seem to pierce the sky, counterpointing the mountain peaks and ridges. Just like the castle, although in a different way, the main meaning of the church is that of the gathering. In this sense it is a social one and its relation to the territory is of a different nature than its military counterpart. The church gathers in the landscape through ritual, that is the repeated action of man on a certain place or path. The church flock, in its entity embodied and symbolised by the church building, covers a wide are and its affluence to the church is a ritual that remarks the landscape and gathers it into the church. A very good example of this is the funeral procession from the hof, which can be up to 2000 meter high in the mountains, to the church in the valley. That was done by foot, even after the cableways and car accessible roads where built, with the whole community of the neighbouring hofs accompanying the deceased in his last trip down the mountain. The rituality of this procession is so embedded in the landscape and manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s relation with it that along the mountain path it is usual to find a cross or a small votive chapel in places where the traveller can catch his breath and admire the landscape. The gathering of the church is therefore a social one, executed through a ritual that is embedded into the territory and shaping it; expressed through an unmistakable visual and auditory symbol, the steeple or bell-tower. The importance of the steeple, expression

Place

bell tower in the valley with the mountains in the background

2. ANALYSIS

of the whole church, is verifiable in the care taken after its design and construction and in its presence in myths and legends. In such lost places deep in the Alps in fact, Christian religion and pagan superstitions are often merged and mixed. There are many stories therefore telling the construction of the churches involving saints as much as giants. An interesting note on the importance of the bells is the fact that some of them were called weather-bells and were believed to have magic powers on influencing the weather, crucial element of nature and gods in an agricultural society.1

P. B. Valente, Leggende Meranesi

although the Mountain Library is typologically based on the mountain farm this understanding of the church is imbued in it (see for example Volume 3, p.178)

The church, considered in all the implications cited above, is a fundamental element of the landscape but, unlike the castle, its physical presence is the symbol and mark of something more abstract and diffuse. It has to do with birth and death, with rituals shaping the country under the boots of the mountain farmers, with nature and its relation to religion; it is the social contract that binds together the people and through them the landscape. Unlike the castle, its architectural definition is the expression of particular things â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a festivity, a vote, a particularly devote noble family and so on â&#x20AC;&#x201C; not necessarily related to the whole and it stands there as the symbol and fulcrum of a gathering that extends itself far beyond the church square and that has the bell-tower as its symbol.

Place

funeral procession from the hof to the valley

2. ANALYSIS

The Field Textures, colours and lushness You feel it like beneath the sun and the blue of the sky everything in nature rises and shines – gold silver, emerald and enamel you touch with the gaze with the hearth, with the soul as if, enamelled and golden your life has become.

the value and meaning of the fields is manifold, mixing with history, economy, landscape, culture

Antonio Manfredi, Poesie del colore, from Itinera Traveling along this valley in his Italian journey Goethe wrote of a fertile place full of vigour and vitality where “you can again believe in a God”.1 The valley is seen by the great German poet and many other colleagues as a small Eden carved inside the high slopes of the Alps. Stefan Zweig2 speaks of a place on which nature has written peace, he praises the harmony of colours and lines along the valley up to its peaks touching the infinite sky. Such an impression can be traced from this example of high literature down to the oral myths and legends of the rural culture of the area. A very important part of this idyllic atmosphere is giv1

J. W. Goethe, Viaggio in Italia

Quoted in P. B. Valente, Leggende Meranesi

Place

2. ANALYSIS

en by the fields that fill the valley and the gentle foothills that mark its course. They are the texture of the valley and its colouring, its structure both physical and psychological. They mark the division of the land and the way in which it is organized, generating an ever-changing motley of lines and textures that guide the eye in an infinite discovery of similarities and differences. Seen from afar, or from above, the fields covering the valley are like a huge carpet that has been knitted by generations over the landscape with that deep, almost intuitive, knowledge of place peculiar to the most vernacular actions. Their lines and borders tell about the conquest of the place by man and his moulding of it according to situations and need. Seen as a whole, the valley with its fields is like a garden within huge walls; indeed, with the proper adjustment of scale, this biblical image cease to be a metaphor and becomes an almost objective description of the place and its atmosphere. Adding colour to the biblical image of the Garden of Eden are the exotic plants planted in the 19th century and still thriving now. The contrast between palms and the snow-covered mountain or the cactuses growing over a glacier river are perfectly in line with the multiplicity of types and their contrast in the biblical Garden. The high mountains around protect the valley within creating a guarded environment where the winds can rarely penetrate and the earth is warmed by the sun.1 1 It is for the particularly good climate of the valley that Meran became an important place of cure or sanatorium in the 19th and 20th cen-

Place

palm trees and snowy peaks

2. ANALYSIS

The relation with the mountains is therefore a fundamental one for the existence of the fields within; their relation though does not stop there. Without the mountains limiting the available ground, the agriculture â&#x20AC;&#x201C; both in the valley and on the mountains themselves â&#x20AC;&#x201C; would not have its particular character. The scarcity of space has in fact forced the farmers to exploit every available piece of land producing the highly complicated and all covering texture of the fields. Their shapes and direction are a response to the orography, the river and streams, land ownership and sun exposition; in this way, the lines of the field are underlining the structure of the landscape and its constitution. They mark the slopes of the foothills and their sensuous bends with a chiaroscuro that resembles an engraving, they fit into each other in an organic pattern like that of cells seen at the microscope, chaotic and ordered at the same time. That of the fields is the upper skin of the landscape, a layer that not only reveals the landscape but underlines and exalts its features in different ways, both morphological and social. Of course, being the main source of life and the base of the culture in the largest sense, fields and agriculture play an important role in the myths and legends â&#x20AC;&#x201C; base and most authentic expression of the origin of any culture.

turies.

Place

the textures of the fields occupying every available surface

2. ANALYSIS

The Wood The skin of the mountain Shine like gems, blossoms, beneath this splendid light which engraves you, flaming, in the blue of the sky in the green of the woods â&#x20AC;&#x201C; shine, thorns of light, turn into piercing gaze, thought no more with shadow nor sorrow. Antonio Manfredi, Poesie del colore, from Itinera The wood is the bank of the hof, at the same time something to fight against and the only source of income for mountain farmers. For the landscape the wood is the skin of the mountain, its texture that gives it presence through the play of colours and shadows of the canopies of the trees. It marks the transition between the valley and the mountaintops and therefore hosts most of the wildlife and biodiversity. The wood is the big carpet that gives unity and difference to the foothills. As such it flows over the slopes of the mountain covering and hiding its secrets, underlining its shapes; wildlife, streams, nest, meadows and paths, they are all gathered by the woods that cover the

Place

2. ANALYSIS

the wood as the traditional building material mixes with the material considerations made on libraries in the previous section of this volume and is largely present in all the designs

mountains. The wood is the embodiment of many legends and myths; both for its mysteriousness and for its high value to all live in the area. Buildings are made in wood (those on the mountains) and heated by it. Artisans work almost only with it. Along with the rock, towering above from a realm that is not that of man, wood is the material the landscape is made from. The forest is the presence of nature in the mountain; emissary, symbol and gatherer of its workings. The fight against it, a real thing in the hof, is the symbol of the time of nature and its unregard for man’s matters and time. The forest is the buffer/meeting point between the realm of man – the valley with its civilisation – and that of nature – the peaks with their transcendental presence.

Place

a path running through the woods

2. ANALYSIS

The Hof Living the mountain Vivid the colours clear the air vitreous the silence on which amused bounces thought â&#x20AC;&#x201C; transparent cage of light the day, lost among these unreachable enigmatic valleys. Antonio Manfredi, I luoghi della nostalgia e quelli del pensiero, from Itinera The hof, maso in Italian, is the mountain farm of the mountains of Tyrol. It is not only a type of building and dwelling but it embodies a whole way of life and culture. The institution of the hof â&#x20AC;&#x201C; its building type, the way of farming, its social and economic structure â&#x20AC;&#x201C; remained unchanged for centuries until modernity with its roads, electricity, telephones, televisions and most of all tourism, reached it in the last half of the previous century. The transformation that this typology and the life it represents is an eloquent example of how the region of South Tyrol has adapted itself to the radical changes of the last 50/60 years. What is interesting for this analysis though is the resilience that this typology

this is one of the defining characteristics of the Mountain Library as a place of retire

has kept in face of this changes and even more the permanence nonetheless of a way of life that can be traced back to the time of castles and plagues. Here the hof is seen as one of the highest expression of the genius loci of this mountains, embodied in its architectures and in the life they represent. One of the main characteristics of the hof is its isolation. The organism that it forms – because the hof is not a single building but a collection of buildings, pastures and woods – is the island of the “green sea” of the mountains. Their agglomeration is like an archipelago of small islands, related to each other by small but tight social relations and light, sometimes treacherous, paths connecting them like a web. The difference between the metaphor and the reality is that these “islands” were not given by nature but conquered by man; the woods cleared to make way for pastures and fields, every material that is not wood or stone brought by foot from the valley up to 2000 meters below. There are many theories as to why people started colonising the mountain in this way, whatever the truth may be the result is that of a struggle of man carving out its place in nature and from nature. This act, sometimes compared with the American conquest of the west, is the determinant of isolation and its characteristics. The spots are always carefully chosen, though in different ways according to morphology and resources, and the buildings erected on them always speak of this struggled balance with the

a typical hof and its environment

The shapes are simple and clear, the typology in its interminable variations is almost always the same although smaller groups of it can be identified according to the different valleys. The stone, forming thick walls and volts covered in white plaster, solidly and seamlessly anchors the building to the ground and the wood elevates the structure over it looking for the sun with many balconies and pitched roofs. From the choice of the location to the shaping of the available materials the particular condition of dwelling in the mountain is expressed in simplicity, making every hof look as if it could not have been otherwise. The meadow, the pasture could not exist without the hof â&#x20AC;&#x201C; which is always considered as the combination of buildings, pasture and woods. It is a constant fight, marking the time of nature and its incessant progression, regardless of human interests. That could be the reason why such places give an impression of suspended peace, as if it was out of borrowed time. Like the demons of the myths, old and wise creatures say, they remember the slopes being nine times meadows, nine time woods.1 They speak of an eternal circularity of time that is embedded in the meadow as a temporary mark of the presence of man in nature. The meadow speaks of this balance between man and nature. The point of stillness, definitely precarious and 1

P. B. Valente, Leggende Meranesi

more than the other two, the Mountain Library closely follows the typology it refers to, that of the hof

this indivisibility of the building and its setting has strongly influenced the understanding of the Mountain Library and its surrounding

nature of the mountain.

main elements of the hof type

suspended, where the two forces meet and are balanced. It is not a stable balance but one that needs to be perpetuated by man and that will cease to exist when this constant effort will stop. The attachment to the land is then explained also by this continuous work of carving a place out of nature for man to be and thrive. It has an idyllic atmosphere, reminding of Eden and Paradise in its suspended, almost ethereal simplicity; a place where man and nature are balanced, underneath a patch of sky.

clearing

isolation

aggregation

unity hof-meadow-woods

main elements of the hof settlement

Rose Garden

from P. B. Valente, Leggende Meranesi The rose garden of king Laurino and his enchanting daughter is in the surroundings of Meran. According to some it is above Plars, on the slopes where the mountain has left some big boulders. According to others it blossomed on the slopes that descend gently from Castel Tirol towards Quarze, between Castel Tower and the Mount of Meran. Even today the road that from the city climbs towards the rock of the counts is called via Laurin. The garden was scattered with flowers whose scent had extraordinary virtues. It could heal from illness and comfort every worry. Nightingales and chaffinches had their concerts there. Neither walls nor fence to limit the access: the rose garden was enclosed by silk ribbons and golden threads. Laurino was old and wise. A quite person loving life. Within the mountain the kind of dwarfs had â&#x20AC;&#x201C; rather still has â&#x20AC;&#x201C; his crystal palace and a daughter with eyes the colour of the sky and hair blond as gold. The girl loved his father very much, but not as much that life forced in the bowels of the mountain. When she came of age, she asked the kind a plot of land, under the light of the sun, to make a garden of it. Laurino didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t find any fault with it and granted the demand. Thus the blond princess went out in the open, looked for the right space and cleaned the ground from brambles and thorns. Then she planted every kind of rose, making the garden of which stories are still told. It was enough to look at it, the rose garden, to regain the taste of life. Or to smell its scent, to grasp the

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meaning of the days passing by. Or to be carried away by the nightingale song, to reconcile with the world. It was so that everyone could take the highest advantage of it, that the youth did not enclose it with walls or fences, simply stretching a ribbon of golden silk all around. The legend does not say when this paradise ended. According to some, on a dark day three black knights appeared and â&#x20AC;&#x201C; considering earthly happiness fruit of Satan â&#x20AC;&#x201C; laid waste to the rose garden and then governed, in their own way, over the whole region. According to others the rose garden is still there. You just need to know how to see it.

the hofs and their gardens

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The Mountain The Idea of North Everybody carries their own idea of north with them.

Sea and high mountain have nothing of the landscape, they are elemental, in the sense of a extreme, savage, extra-human greatness. Thomas Mann, Lübeck as spiritual way of life I will not speak of the mountain, but through the mountain. With this mountain as language, I will speak of another mountain that is the course that links the earth to the sky, and I will speak of it not to give in, but to urge myself. René Daumal, The Mount Analogue Everybody knows what the north is and how to find it, you just look at the sun and check the time. If you ask a geographer he will tell you that there a two norths. A geographical and a magnetic one. The first is the centre of the pole, where the meridians meet – it is the result of a geometrical operation on the sphere of the Earth. The second one is where the compass points to; it is not generated by man’s geometry but by Earth’s magnetic field.

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Daumal with his Mount Analogue and Mann with his Magic Mountain have been the two most important authors in defining the idea of the mountain and our relation with it; their contributions to this work are too many to be listed

The Idea of North has been a fundamental concept in shaping the understanding of the area and the way in which to consider it

Peter Davidson, The Idea of North

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whereas the idea for a new orientation comes from the poem Amereida, these pulls of the landscape have been observed from the first visit on the site, walking along the promenades and taking pictures the feeling was that of unconsciously orienting oneself according to these visual pulls

Nevertheless, for any person who does not plan to visit the poles this kind of knowledge has nothing to do with real life matters. The two norths, geographical and magnetic, are so close that we can actually consider them the same; that is why we can use a compass pointing to the magnetic north to orientate ourselves towards the geographical one. However, as the compass needle is pulled toward the magnetic north and we orient ourselves accordingly, there are other pulls related to other norths whose influence is felt through other kind of needles. North is an idea as much as a cardinal point in our geography. Although related to its geographical meaning, the idea of north can be something much different to anyone of us and orient towards different directions. If you are Italian, or at least that is the way I see it, north means mountains and snow; it means valleys with woods and sheer rock, crystalline lakes and introverted people. Italy is a great example of how the landscape can embody an idea of north. The Alps, separating the peninsula from the continent from east to west, are not only the northernmost part of Italy, they are North. Wherever you come from in Italy, if you go north you will eventually end up in the Alps. Even as south as in Venice, on a clear day you can clearly see that jagged rocky and snowy wall, marking the end of Italy and the beginning of the North. North is a wall. In this case a natural one made of

104

105

the idea of finding a new North, far from being a merely theoretical exercise has shaped the way in which the landscape is understood and it gave a deeper meaning to the place

the arc of the Alps separating Italy from the continent (above) the South Cross as new orientation for Latin America, from Amereida (below)

Barriers though, are there to be crossed. The idea of north is in fact an idea of the sublime; it is, as for the compass needle, a pull oriented towards something alien but intriguing. By the logic of contrast, north is also a place of repose; the place of fireplaces and misty windows. It is the place of retire, where man can be alone with nature in its crystal purity; it is a place where man needs to know how to dwell. Window with falling snow is arrayed, Long tolls the vesper bell, The house is provided well, The table is for many laid. Wandering ones, more than a few, Come to the door on darksome courses. Golden blooms the tree of graces Drawing up the earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cool dew. Wanderer quietly steps within; Pain has turned the threshold to stone. There lie, in limpid brightness shown, Upon the table bread and wine. Georg Trakl, A winter evening

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this idea of the border is one of the main elements that define the essence of the place and consequently the nature of the designs

mountains and valleys. In England it was made by Adrian â&#x20AC;&#x201C; who was maybe thinking of the alpine one back home â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and in China as well, it separates civilisation from chaos; the barbarians who take many forms but that in these cases always come from the unknown, cold and dark north.

the wall of the mountains to the north

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The city is surrounded and defined by its mountains, ever-present even when they are hidden behind a building or a tree; it is they that define the space and the atmosphere. At the same time ominous physical presence and ideal representations. They are the other pole of the city, one grounding itself in the lush valley and connecting with the river, the others towering above and projecting their presence. Like a sailor following the stars and orienting towards the polar star, so the wanderer can do the same in these places with the peaks and ridges around him. Discarding the compass it is possible to build a geography only through the shadows cast by the mountains and the disposition of their peaks and ridges. The triangular, almost ideal shape of the Zielspitz1 (Tel peak in Italian) is our polar star. When swiping the valley with the gaze, from within the city or above it, the Zielspitz is the point of balance where the eye is led to and can repose, like in a beautifully composed painting. With its ominous presence it orients the valley towards northwest, which coincides with the other generator of this space, the Adige river that quietly flows at its feet. Next to it, straight to the north, a ridge of rocky peaks covered in snow marks the end of the valley; a small image of the Alpine arc, dividing Italy from the rest of Eu1 Zielspitz means Goal/Target peak in German, confirming the perception expressed here.

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Heideggerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s idea of dwelling poetically (Poetically man dwells, in Poetry Language, Thought) is one of the key concepts underneath this whole work

discovered through Heidggerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s beautiful analysis of it (in Poetry, Language, Thought) this poem bears the essence of the Mountain Library and of the idea of shelter in the mountain reminding Bachelardâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s penetrating gaze of the little window (The Poetics of Space)

To dwell in the north is to dwell poetically.

the Zielspitz and the last sun coming through the Venosta valley

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rope. It is clear then, when you look around, that you have reached a border. The open and green valley in the south collides with the sheer presence of the alpine peaks and, at this junction, Meran finds its place.

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this literary topos is inhabited through the use of literature by the libraries that are thus arising from it, attuned to its elements

The city gathers the mountains around itself and give them a structure; or it may be better to say that the city recognises the structure of the landscape and adapts itself to it. It is difficult to explain but the presence of the mountains has a power that goes beyond their shape and orientation, the shadows they cast and the way in which they direct the gaze. It is probably a mix of those things all acting together on perception to reach an incredible achievement. Being simultaneously real and ideal. They are literary topoi in themselves and here they are inextricably intertwined with what this place is and means.

fantasies on the Analogue Mountain

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SITE

Finding the place for the library in Meran

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2. ANALYSIS

Dwelling in the mountains A threefold landscape How do you dwell in the north, in this particular north? What does it mean to dwell in the alpine north?

the three landscape characters analysed here are then translated in the three building characters of the designs

First of all, there are three big different modes of dwelling, defined by the relationship with the mountain. To dwell in Meran is to dwell within the Alps and to dwell within the Alps is to relate with the mountains. There is the valley, the foothills and the mountain. Three â&#x20AC;&#x153;beltsâ&#x20AC;? of landscape according to three different relations with the mountain. The mountain is the north and to dwell in the north is to relate with the mountain. To dwell poetically is to feel this relation with the mountain and built accordingly. Building in the north is the form-making of this relationship, it is the grounding of an idea of place and its meaning to man. There is one kind of dwelling in the valley; it is that of cities and towns, of civilisation and society. Palaces with thick pillars and low volts, rough plaster and grey stone. The buildings close together among themselves, anchored to the castle and the river, among lush fields and silver streams. In the valley the town has fair and warm weather, protected by snow and wind, the windows are wide and the roofs are not so steep. The valley is a cradle where civilisation flourishes and towns get bigger and evolve. The typology mutates according to

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1.valley

A threefold landscape 2. foothill 3.mountain

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2. ANALYSIS

these characters were declined in the formal definition of the City Library

styles and fashion, to the economy and the political situation. In the valley, you can see the evolution of the place through its buildings, resilient marks of their time. In Meran buildings do not need to shelter from the mountain and its moods, they are sheltered by it. Buildings are made to look at, not only to shelter. Here builders and architects could experiment styles and solutions. Nonetheless, with the exception of the placeless buildings of late modernity, the presence of the place can be seen in the buildings, from the medieval arcades with their gothic arches and volts to the 19th century castle-like palaces and austerely decorated buildings. There is always a deep sense of stability, of grounding deep in the earth like the mountains they are surrounded by. Be it the thickness and sheer presence of the medieval buildings, the austere and bulky shapes of the 19th century palaces or the stereometry of the contemporary architecture. In all of them there is a sense of soberness, of pure geometry that is transformed into mass and weight. It is not the playfulness of details and shapes of the south, here soberness is the key world even in the few examples of art nouveau. A detail, a panting on the wall or the carving on a wooden beam is a sign of distinction, a mark of human presence softening the geometric soberness and weight of the buildings. Decoration is not for decoration sake but to mark an identity, to say â&#x20AC;&#x153;of this we are proudâ&#x20AC;?. The towns are concentrated and compact, with the

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Although the main elements are the same, the way of relating to them changes when we reach the foothills of the mountains and the type of dwelling that occurs there. The towns are smaller and the buildings are arranged more in a farm-like way, small clusters of buildings are huddled together along the contour lines of the mountain, underlined by the fields of grapevines, pears and apple trees. This is the midway between the autonomous isolation of the mountain and the social cohabitation of the valley. Buildings are still quite numerous

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this orientation is the one that defines the Foothill Library

exception of the most recent extensions following the placeless typology of building speculation and soil occupation imported from the south. The valley is a cradle when you look at it from the point of view of fields and weather. It is a corridor between high walls when you think of light and relation with the landscape. The buildings are not only in the valley, they are between the mountains. Their sheer presence is reflected quite evidently in the shadows they cast, hiding the sun even for months in the most ill exposed of places. The buildings therefore, and the towns they make up, are placed according to both the river and the shadows, which is to say the mountains. Buildings in the valley react to the mountain by clustering together and â&#x20AC;&#x153;groundingâ&#x20AC;? themselves; that is both in terms of built shape and urban fabric. Always in relation with the mountains and their shadow and the river, the two poles of structure and orientation of the landscape.

2. ANALYSIS

but much more spread, covering with their fields all of the exploitable ground, especially on the south oriented slopes. If in the city the perception and identity of the single building mixes with the overall image of the town, on the foothills each building or cluster of buildings has a character of its own, self-standing among its fields. Their relative isolation mixed with the visual and social connection with the valley has created some features that distinguish each building. Every balcony, for example, is decorated with colourful flowers, every neighbour competing for the lushest and most colourful display. That goes as well for the care of the wooden claddings and details. Unlike in the city, the typology is more or less the same for every building, dictated by tradition and function; the role of detail and decoration is therefore that of characterising each building. While the city is an homogeneous collection of styles and types, the foothill is a very individualistic collection of the same style and typology, an endless variation on the theme of the hill farm, which is now integrated with modern villas and hotels. The third type of dwelling is the most particular one and very typical of this region. Descending from the medieval colonisation of the valley â&#x20AC;&#x201C; explained in many different ways from the legend of Noah anchoring the Ark to the mountain tops to a much more real escape from the plague â&#x20AC;&#x201C; it is the type of the mountain farm,

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‘At high altitudes,’ he said, ‘there’s no place for the fantastic, because reality itself is more marvellous than anything man could imagine. She understands that the view one has from a high peak is not registered in the same perspective range as a still-life painting or an ordinary landscape. Her paintings admirably express the circular structure of space in the upper regions. […] her pictures, with their curved perspectives, vividly recall those frescos in which the old religious painters tried to represent the concentric circles of the celestial universe. René Daumal, The Mount Analogue

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2. ANALYSIS

living with the mountain is the goal of the Mountain Library

called maso in Italian and hof in German. The hof is the symbol of a particular kind of dwelling related solely to the mountain and the few things man can extract from it. It is a kind of peasant aristocracy. After centuries it still has the feeling of the frontier, everything has to be fought for and earned in a constant fight between man and indifferent nature.1 The first thing to mention about the hof is its indivisibility from its meadow/pasture and its woods. It is actually the collectivity of buildings – residence, stables, barns, etc. – pasture and woods that is called the hof, not just the main building. Just like a proper villa needs its park to be called so, the hof is nothing without the nature it fights against and depends from. “The wood is the bank of the hof ” is a phrase you notice quite often when reading interviews to the inhabitants and owners of these places; so isolated from the rest of the world and dependent from the one they have that some do not, and cannot believe, the reporter telling them that man has gone to the moon.2 The hof is the proper living with the mountain. Not in the extreme and temporary way of the moun1 This account considers the real typology of the hof and the life associated with it but it should be noted that in the last 20/30 years the extreme increase of modern tourism has changed the life on these mountains and most of these places are now abandoned or turned into hotels and restaurants for the people passing by trekking. 2 This is from A. Gorfer, Gli eredi della solitudine written between 1971 and 1972, when the first roads where being built to connect the hofs with the valley, disrupting forever this extreme detachment with all of the negative and positive implications.

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taineer, nor in the safe and detached way of the valley. In the hof it is the valley, not the mountain, that looks like a foreign and faraway place. The buildings of the hof are the most genuine expression of the vernacular of the mountain, confirming the existence of such a thing as genius loci. They are anchored to the slopes as if they are about to slide downhill â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and a few times landslides actually came to that. Like small islands in the thick and steep forest, they are entities in themselves, everything so strongly defined by the place and life over centuries that it could not be otherwise. The typology is very simple but its variations, defined by the place and the generations of inhabitants, are endless. There is a kind of simplicity in those places and buildings that is difficult to describe, everything is as is; not out of choice or necessity but as if it could not be otherwise. Maybe it is because in eight centuries almost nothing has changed or because somehow they have reached their genius loci, their mode of being that cannot be evolved, only varied.

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2. ANALYSIS

Three Libraries Declining the design to the three dwelling modes of the mountains You cannot stay on the summit forever; you have to come down again... So why even bother in the first place? Just this: what is above knows what is below, but what is below does not know what is above. René Daumal, The Mount Analogue 1. The building with its weight stands in the city, grounding its presence amidst the forces of the landscape, in the crossroad of the valleys. Buildings are heavy and stand together in a differentiated mass carved by streets, arches and windows. Mass and strong form are necessary to stand out and present a grasp to the gaze, a reference in the landscape. The city “huddles” together and looks up to the sky and the mountains around. 2. On the foothills, the buildings are oriented towards the sun, the hill above the city is the perfect spot, even in winter. The sun “carves them out” of the fields and trees, the white of the plaster shining among the brown and green canopies. Like sentinels, they watch over the city, self standing entities, embraced by the mountain behind and above. 3. The ridges and valleys, with their play of light and shadow, underline particular places as privileged loca-

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tions on the mountain. The hofs are to the mountain what the stars are to the sky. Connected by invisible lines and part of a different world, that of highness and nature, suspended between earth and sky.

the three sites emerging from a site visit

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2. ANALYSIS

City Library A modern palace integrated in the city fabric, embodiment of the essence of Meran Site: Valley, Meran city centre Typology: Public library Archetype: Palace Action: Engagement Operation: Integration Condition: Experience

DESIGN LOCATION (1x1 km)

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Site

SITE CONDITIONS

125

2. ANALYSIS

DESIGN INDICATIONS

integration with the system of courtyards and arcades

compactness

stereometry

framing the landscape urban/mass level

framing the landscape building/interior level

126

Site

facade, vertical definition

section simple exterior - complex interior

3 levels BASE (ground) - MIDDLE (body) - TOP (sky)

3 characters

3 relations

127

2. ANALYSIS

Foothill Library Gathering landscape and culture, a lighthouse in the sea of mountains Site: Foothill, Tyrol Typology: Research library Archetype: Tower Action: Observation Operation: Suspension Condition: Awareness

DESIGN LOCATION (1x1 km)

128

Site

SITE CONDITIONS

129

2. ANALYSIS

DESIGN INDICATIONS

isolation

library = path + building

central core + fanning out

2 structures

central space + intimate spaces

2 structures

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Site

orientation according to morphology

anchoring + overhanging

overlooking the valley â&#x20AC;&#x153;receivingâ&#x20AC;? the mountains

communal space - diffused indirect light, mountain view intimate spaces - controlled light, valley view

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2. ANALYSIS

Mountain Library Living with the mountain, a detached place of retire Site: Mountain, Mutkpopf Typology: Private library Archetype: Hof Action: Reflection Operation: Retire Condition: Contemplation

DESIGN LOCATION (1x1 km)

132

Site

SITE CONDITIONS

133

2. ANALYSIS

DESIGN INDICATIONS

isolation

unity building - meadow - woods

aggregation each function a unit

134

Site

2 structures

clearing defining the view

framing elements of the landscape

135

orientation according to elements of the lanscape