~
Who can circumnavigate Avalon's depository and the palpable swoop down toward earthier terrain?
Yet, here I am.
Where is your gravity taking me, Kahn?
This building is an invitation, and I am humbled in this sense of arrival. The books are stored away from the light. So a man with a book goes to the light, the serenity of light.
And therein lies the hidden meaning.
But you won't let it become just a building; you want it to remain much a ruin; it's all somehow sinister in its celebration.
Occasional distraction is as important in reading as concentration.
And I'm reading between the lines in a corner carrel, looking out at academic crop circles; I grapple with each texture: it's this combination of imposing austerity and weathered familiarity that you seize upon to make your current landscape hospitable.
This building is an instrument, creates a sound in my head akin to music; and this music remains a glowing source of solitude, all driven by a desire to be hidden but sought after—a celebration of all things lost and unnamed.
Here I find closure by opening a book.
~
An ode to architect Louis Kahn's Phillips Exeter Academy Library in New Hampshire. It is the largest secondary school library in the world.