More than a library, by design
In a rapidly changing world that is redefining notions of the public and the private, the virtual and the real, information is now a technology that manifests right on one’s personal laptop! In such a scenario, do libraries as physical spaces still have a role to play as important public commons?
We posed this question to ourselves when asked to design ‘Sundarayya Vignana Kendra’ an institutional-scaled library complex in Hyderabad’s Gachi Bowli area.
While outlining the design programme for SVK, we looked at a library not just as a repository of information but also as the only public space that allows for quiet contemplation. In the physical access to knowledge that it provides, by contrast with the hidden retrieval structures of digital information, a library symbolically embodies ano...