Wall of Knowledge
December 8th, 02009 by Alexander Rose
Long Now friend and supporter Ken Wilson sends in this awesome concept for the Stockholm Library. This design seems like it would lend itself well to a 10,000 year library…
The image above is a rendering by a team of students at the Architecture School of Paris La Seine. You can see the un-textured model below and read how the design was generated over at CG Society.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Digital Dark Age, Long Term Art. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Posted on December 8th, 2009 at 3:32 pm
[...] A model for the Stockholm library (from the Long Now) [...]
Posted on December 8th, 2009 at 6:58 pm
Cool looking: Yes.
10,000 year design: With sunlight falling right on the books?
Posted on December 9th, 2009 at 10:54 am
I’d hate to be a page there!
Posted on December 10th, 2009 at 2:58 am
Just look at that awesome library. Just look at it.
Posted on December 10th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
I got the same feeling looking at this as I did when I looked over the edge of Half Dome in Yosemite.
Posted on December 10th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
@David Rysdam: Great observation. We still have a LONG way to go in long-term thinking.
Other than looking pretty on a portfolio I don’t know what problem is this supposed to solve. It puts a gulf between books and readers, is a pain to navigate (only one stair in the middle of a long level), and I wonder how are you supposed to reach the higher shelves. I seriously doubt it even saves on lighting -you know, midday doesn’t last forever- and even their own render shows most levels will have poor illumination.
Actually, it’s a pretty good example of short-term thinking -a cool print for an architect’s portfolio. If you want it to last and be useful, bring an engineer.
(And no, I’m not an engineer).
Posted on December 10th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
Yeah, that doesn’t make good sense with all that sunlight hitting those books. Silly humans.
Posted on December 10th, 2009 at 3:01 pm
For something to serve in the 21st century, this is a waste of resources. The concept is centuries old and does little to make existing knowledge available to a larger, more diverse population. Impressive, yes. But so are the pyramids.
Posted on December 11th, 2009 at 5:02 am
So put in some lights and don’t allow for sunlight to enter. Problem solved, and we have a great design.
As for the problem of reaching the top shelves – libraries do this all the time. They put books that are hardly ever used where they can only be reached after going through some trouble. For example using a sliding ladder.
Accessability is not much of a problem either. One shelf alone contains loads of books, so once you’re there you’ll have access to a whole section. Unless you need to access books on cooking, horseback riding, mathematics, space engineering and popular music within an arms reach, you’re not gonna have a problem. Instead of entering a specific room of an ordinary library, you’ll enter a specific shelf. I don’t really see the problem.
Posted on December 11th, 2009 at 5:08 am
Wow, absolutely mind-boggling.
Posted on December 11th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Preserving the classic medium of knowledge is an interesting idea, it visually imparts the concept of knowledge as a construction.
Posted on December 11th, 2009 at 10:25 am
I think it would be pretty cool combined with a Google-like scan of all the books. Researchers would work at workstations. Select the group of books you want to work with and robots are dispatched to retrieve them. When done you send them back. Since the locations of all the books would be stored in a database, there’s no need to worry about stacking them in the correct order.
This isn’t your normal lending library, this would be like having all our printed knowledge on one wall for tourists and visitors to marvel at. Researchers would book private rooms for their study.
Posted on December 12th, 2009 at 3:08 am
[...] Vía: The Long Now Blog [...]
Posted on December 12th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
Books? On paper? What are those?
Posted on December 12th, 2009 at 7:48 pm
[...] (Via The Long Now Foundation.) [...]
Posted on December 12th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
[...] Wall of Knowledge By transientreporter This is a design concept for the Stockholm Library. More here. [...]
Posted on December 12th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
[...] Concept for the Stockholm Public Library International Architectural Competition. 12.13.2009Tagged with: architectureStockholm Public Library [...]
Posted on December 14th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Reminded me of giant version of Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
http://www.som.com/content.cfm/gordon_bunshaft_interview_on_beinecke_library
Posted on December 14th, 2009 at 11:41 am
[...] [The Long Now via Katy Alonzo] [...]
Posted on December 15th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
[...] fra to forskjellige hold med 16 timers mellomrom, så da anses den som høyst bloggbar. Dette er “Wall of Knowledge”. De med trenet øye ser sikkert at dette ikke er ekte saker, men en bra visualisering. Studenter fra [...]
Posted on December 16th, 2009 at 1:01 am
What about inclusive Arch/Design???
The books getting damaged is the least of my worries.
What about the People? Pregnant women? Old people? Mobility-challenged citizens?
I really doubt they will implement elevators there, it would ruin the Image.
What about climbing all the way to the last floor and down again only to notice you forgot to bring one book? What about tables near the shelves for quick cross-consultations?
Stunning? For sure! As all StArchitecture. Too bad they sold the people for the WOW factor.
Posted on December 16th, 2009 at 6:51 am
[...] Source [...]
Posted on December 17th, 2009 at 3:37 am
[...] ilustração foi publicada no blog da Long Now Foundation, uma fundação que está ligada a novas maneiras de encarar o tempo, como forma de tomar atitudes [...]
Posted on December 17th, 2009 at 7:15 am
a very interesting discussion above with a number of interesting points raised, addressed and counter-raised (longevity, acessibility, resources..)
what it does very well though is attract attention and encourage reflection. perhaps these are its greatest assets and the point of the excersise.
one more thing – since this is intended for stockholm, it will never happen. the status quo is unfortunately all powerful here. at the moment.
Posted on December 23rd, 2009 at 12:10 am
Wow I just saw all the comments on my post here.
I think what this space does very well is get you interested in all the stuff that could be in all those books. It shows depth and diversity. I see this as a place to see what books once looked like.
In a seriously long term library, handling any physical volumes will have to be for special purposes only (like rescanning with better tech in the future). Most people will just access the data on those books as text.
And yes you would have to solve the UV problem, but that could be done through coated glass, or just using archival lighting system in its place.
Posted on December 26th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
[...] The future of libraries Wall of Knowledge – The Long Now Blog __________________ sempiternally offtopic: Stochastic [...]
Posted on December 28th, 2009 at 6:17 am
I don’t know about all that naked concrete.
Stephan
Posted on January 5th, 2010 at 11:40 pm
[...] Wall of Knowledge- The Long Now Blog, December 8, 2009 [...]
Posted on January 28th, 2010 at 3:29 pm
[...] Posted on 08 December 2009 A model for the Stockholm library (from the Long Now) [...]