MANHATTAN LIBRARY
A library is composed of an intricate choreography of conflict between unconsciousness and consciousness, occurring within the individual, yet accumulating to reveal the spirit of the collective community which the library serves; it is an analog barometer of collective consciousness.
It begins with a collection of nothing and accumulates based on member request. The Dewey Decimal System is broken into 6 main collections based on intellectual zones of conflict: GOD, SELF, NATURE, TECHNOLOGY, ART, SOCIETY. Each collection is given equal space in the library, and difference between them registers through density.
It pulses with activation of knowledge and remains current, cleansing itself of atrophied matter: if a book is not checked out or used for 5 years, it is moved to the exterior membrane. Here it is open to the elements, where it is degraded by rain and wind, leaving behind its ink and melting down into the base as pulp through a series of structural pipes. Here the corporeal processes of bookmaking occur. The knowledge which has atrophied is not ossified, but is reincarnated as a new active member of consciousness.
The sanctity of the intellect is often conceived of through a lens of dissociation from the corporeal. The library, a sanctuary for the collective intellect and imagination, is only manifest through corporeal processes which are synchronistically expressed in the architecture.
