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Optical Readings

Part 2 Project 2006
Elizabeth Jacobs
Wendpagnangde Naomi Nicol Nakoulma
 University of Greenwich | UK
Optical Readings creates a cultural history for Medway, a new city searching for an identity. Two libraries evolve as separate buildings with different forms, responding to their unique environments and the objects they hold. All the while, both libraries remain true to the aim of the collection, to celebrate the culture of the people of Medway and to celebrate the special nature of the objects they contain; the written word and the photographic image. Two recorders of memory and time passed, and their own imprint to the city and slowly building into a historical record.


'Gateway Games' and Medway in particular have been the focus of our academic frame over the last few years; crossed with a Perecian ordering system and a dose of psychogeography layered into the library programme has created Optical Readings. Liz and Paula have played a subtle schizophrenic game with image and text, photograph and the book fabricating a new recording and interpretation of 'Chav' city and the home of Charles Dickens (& his Swiss Chalet). The ordering of books - their classification, falling, recycling meets the subjective space of the photograph; left and right sides of the brain meet, the logic and the subjective.
Tutor(s)
2006
It is time to create a cultural history for Medway, a new city searching for an identity. Two libraries evolve as separate buildings with different forms, responding to their unique environments and the objects they hold.
The way in which the brain processes information is the inspiration for the scheme. Just the same way the brain processes written information with the left side and visual information with the right, so the two libraries work this way
The libraries record Medway as they evolve under new regeneration proposals. The writer's library enables the people of Medway to record their thoughts and ideas and the image library is a camera observing and recording the image of the city.
The objects are the critical part of the collection. These have not only formed the programme for the cultural base in Medway but also the physical spaces in which they are enclosed. The book falls from the shelf, deteriorating over time.
The objects are visible in the sections of the libraries and their movement is the life of the buildings, the arterial flow of information.
The fabricator, the creator of the ideas feeding into the Medway collection. The writer in the library, the bookbinder in his studio and the photographer in his darkroom.
The images of the city are analysed and the rich culture and history is unveiled. The inhabitants engage with Medway.
Capturing Medway the photographer reflects on the city, his work contributing to the Image Library collection.
In every collection or library there must be a system of classification, a way of ordering the objects that is not always understandable to the casual observer but that is carried throughout the collection.
The written library observes its classification system in both the architectural spaces and the ordering of the collection.
The Charles Dicken's writing chalet, a gift to the author, arrived at Higham station in crates. Studies into the components of this prefabricated building formed the programme of the image library.
The fabrication of the envelopes of the libraries reflect the crafts of the fabricators. The fabric is designed to emphasise the programme of the buildings and the collections they house.
The Darkroom processes and exposes the city. The photographer's craft manipulates the image of the city.
The materiality of the Maker's Library reflects the nature of the spaces within. The reading rooms are large glazed volumetric spaces, the perfect atmosphere for absorbing the texts contained within the libraries.
In the Image Library, the layering of the facade with dichroic glass reflects and transmits light, a reflection of the photographic processes distorting the passage of light.
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