In the midst of technological advancements and instant access to information, the role of a library in the contemporary cultural, political, and economic context is being questioned. Thapli's library design transcends the notion of a mere collection of books, embracing the broader concept of knowledge and connectivity.
In the vast Himalayan Mountain range lies Thapli, a remote village on the verge of being completely abandoned by its own people. In this slow process of desolation, the first to leave are the men, while the women work trifold still holding the agrarian village together. Our interest lies in the Women of Thapli, the last fully functioning members of the village, that were systemically kept outside the “economic scheme” and hence is also the only one capable of challenging it.
By appropriating the traditional concept of a library/ pustakaalay/ gyaan aashray for the women of Thapli, this intervention aims to create a transformative space that challenges the prevailing notion of progress defined solely by urbanization. Instead, it highlights the intrinsic value of self-sustaining village ecosystems and their potential to chart a more environmentally sustainable and inclusive future.
The allure of the 'city' is stained. Worldwide cities have gone from being physical manifestation of human ingenuity to manifestations of brute inequality and unsustainability, and while all of us in cities sit and boil in the discomfort of this grim reflection, it seems more uncomfortable to get out. Simultaneously the identity of the 'village' is seized.
Worldwide villages are seen as “to-be developed town to, to-be developed city” but no longer as parallel ecosystems, and it's very people lured by the promise of individual economic freedom, have desolated or deconstructed their own villages for more cities to be bred.
Library is seen no longer as an institution that holds knowledge, and sublets to those who seek it, but instead libraries as excuses that percolates gently into the everyday routines of the women of different class, caste and age.
As the women traverse the entirety of the village, interacting with different places in varying intensity, it informs the dispersion of this library in location and in scale all over the village.
Within these interventions, what could a library be to shape a new claim to the imagination of the village by the women of the village itself :
• an archive of its local voices (audio/visual books, songs, folklores)
• a place to showcase the reality of cities (radio, diff audio means to propagate)
• a place to showcase alternate case studies (radio, diff audio means to propagate)
• a place to strengthen democracy (government bulletin board, information center)
• a collective voice to its own diaspora (newsletter/social media update on the village)
• a node in larger social-network of villages (establish communication with neighboring vllgs)
• a museum of its practices (different objects, that represent collective memory)
• a place of respite and repose (shade, water, seatings, toilets)
• a place for harnessing resources (passive and active ways of harnessing sun, waste, water)
• a place for celebration (as event spaces)
• a place that gives identity (materiality, and idiosyncrasies of its people)
Library is seen no longer as an institution that holds knowledge, and sublets to those who seek it, but instead libraries as excuses that percolates gently into the everyday routines of the women of different class, caste and age.
As the women traverse the entirety of the village, interacting with different places in varying intensity, it informs the dispersion of this library in location and in scale all over the village.
Within these interventions, what could a library be to shape a new claim to the imagination of the village by the women of the village itself :
• an archive of its local voices (audio/visual books, songs, folklores)
• a place to showcase the reality of cities (radio, diff audio means to propagate)
• a place to showcase alternate case studies (radio, diff audio means to propagate)
• a place to strengthen democracy (government bulletin board, information center)
• a collective voice to its own diaspora (newsletter/social media update on the village)
• a node in larger social-network of villages (establish communication with neighboring vllgs)
• a museum of its practices (different objects, that represent collective memory)
• a place of respite and repose (shade, water, seatings, toilets)
• a place for harnessing resources (passive and active ways of harnessing sun, waste, water)
• a place for celebration (as event spaces)
• a place that gives identity (materiality, and idiosyncrasies of its people)
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Rainer Maria Rilke