institution: harvard graduate school of design
instructor: beth whittaker
time: 2nd semester core / spring 2014
project: drawing exercise / precedent study
location: astana, kazakhstan / boston, massachusetts
The Astana National Library of Astana, Kazakhstan, is an unrealized design by Bjarke Ingels Group. The design was conceived as a mobius geometry, in which the public program revolves about the library collections in a circular form. Thus, the section of the building changes from the public program flanking the library horizontally, then revolves and rotates to flank it vertically which the analytique, at left, graphically represents.
The redux of the library design was an exercise in applying the concepts of the mobius geometry to a site along the Fenway in Boston, a marsh-like park behind the Museum of Fine Arts. The geometry is unwound, preserving it’s sectional revolution of public program around the library, but as a linear form. This new form acts as a bridge across the Muddy River and reforms lost connections between the park and surrounding areas.
