THE LIBRARY OF BABEL
Places Journal, Illustrations for Publication
Proposal 2013Project 2013
Completion 2013
The Library of Babel is an exploration of the intimate relationship between the structure of Borges' fairy tale and the imaginative realm of architecture through a sequence of graphic works. The illustrations are created for Places, the leading journal of contemporary architecture, landscape, and urbanism as part of the series Fairy Tale Architecture curated by writer Kate Bernheimer and architect Andrew Bernheimer.
RL is fascinated with the story and its breadth of possible architectural outcomes given the specificity of Borges' physical description coupled with his notion that all the books that could ever be written would be accessible (essentially providing access to future knowledge), and with its prediction of our contemporary condition of living with overwhelming access to information.
The modest size of the individual hexagonal library unit gives us an illusionary sense of personal scale and intimacy that seem both reasonable and understandable. As the extent of the conceit unfolds, the library's impenetrability becomes clear and the illusion that all knowledge is somehow close at hand slips away. It is fascinating to analyze the text and mine it for the real, the everyday, the architectural givens of the tale and at the same time search the story for what is not prescribed. We both take care to not stray from Borges' specific descriptions of the spaces and their relationships, and guard against our own assumptions in order to find holes in the story - its openings for interpretation.
RL speculates about how this structure might be built, knowing it is at once completely ordinary and impossible. At the scale of the individual unit or unit cluster, it is easy to imagine. Yet, extending it to size, even to a small fraction of what Borges' story suggests, we bump up against magical glitches in the story. The library's inconceivable corporeal largeness engages us in a lunacy of incomplete understanding.
Published in the book Fairy Tale Architecture, The Library of Babel, by Andrew Bernheimer & Kate Bernheimer, 2020. RL's The Library of Babel was featured in the exhibitions Fairy Tale Architecture, the Center for Architecture, New York, 2023 and in All Tomorrow's Libraries, Koldo Mitxelena Kulturenea, curated by Jorge Carrión, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain, 2019. Originally published in Places Journal, Fairy Tale Architecture: The Library of Babel, 2013.
Rice+Lipka Architects
Principals: Lyn Rice & Astrid Lipka
Associate: Benjamin Cadena
Project Team: Howard Won
