Cornell´s Fine Arts Library will house a collection of more than 120,000 volumes using a so called mezzanine shelving structure: a system which is highly spatial. Mezzanine shelving is rather scaled to the logic, proportion and size of the book than to the size of the human visitor. Mezzanine shelving allows to house the largest number of books in the premises given and at the same time it is giving coordinates to knowledge in space. It is about space and volume. The architectural work then is the tuning of that system, the opening of various climbing paths for readers and visitors into a solid of knowledge. The design for the Fine Arts Library is an immediate and quite physical invitation to discover an extraordinary collection which appears as one big volume, visible in its entirety upon entering. Winding staircases are the keys to enter this volume of knowledge, browse, read and wonder.
