Abstract:
Anything that is living will eventually die. The beauty in life is its ability to slip away at any moment. These notions do not apply only to the living and breathing humans and animals; not only to flora and fauna but to the constructed realm around us. Buildings are born, brought into this world to live and serve a purpose; they are able to have long and beautiful lives filled with joy, and yet, some buildings are brought into misery and despair. Life may go many ways; time can stretch on, but no matter how long life may last, eventually even a building must succumb to its eventual demise. Death may be easy and swift for a building, a light wave of the hand, and there is no more life, yet that is not always the fact. Death may be a prolonged process where a building is subjected to abandonment and decay. The birth, life and death of a human is so clearly defined; it is not as simple when it comes to buildings. What would define a building’s birth, life and death? There is something different between humans and buildings, and this is the fact that a building can be reborn. That would entail the extended question of what would define a building’s birth, life, death and rebirth? This conceptual thinking of birth, life, death and rebirth could be applied to the current closing of the three individual Specialist Libraries of Auckland University. The Fine Arts Library, Architecture and Planning Library, and the Music and Dance Library will be consolidating into the General Library by Mid-2019; causing the potential death to these Specialist Libraries. Through a concise design process of collaging through the materiality of concrete, these three Libraries will be embodied into the monumental conjoined Library; which aims to commemorate the birth, life and death. This would be a hideous pieced-together Library, designed for the sole purpose of bringing back the memories of the past through a rebirth.