The Minimum Common. The Library and Its Vicissitudes

Abstract

Crises foster new ideas and the period following World War I was no exception: the notion of Existenzminimum was the architectural answer to a housing crisis on a territory that needed a total reconstruction. Architectural design was an exercise in concentrating the minimal conditions of living around a rationally divided space. Today, Western society is confronted with a different crisis, one structured around the nature of architectural heritage and its impact on public space. The systematic privatization of space and the constant correlation of space to consumption leaves affects public space. Instead of the minimal dwelling, public space demands a minimum of commons that is fundamental to a community’s existence, maintenance and development. This common minimum, a clear reference to the Existenzminimum, consist of the following sets of activities related to a place: debate (related to the agora), attention (related to the workshop), memory (related to the gallery) and reflection (related to the library). The hypothesis that inspired this workshop is that participative design entails the active engagement of a community with this common minimum. Its four dimension (debate, attention, memory, reflection) constitute the program that can motivate – through adaptive reuse or other forms of design – the employment of the existent heritage. After all, heritage is only significant for history and history is a specific involvement of memory. Hence, the justification of memory as a common minimum in relation to the continuous debate, reflection and attention that it deserves. Speaking of a community, in the sense of a shared space (Gemeinschaft, Tönnies) depends thus on a maximum of engagement from all its participants. You are thus encouraged to investigate the potential, position and relation of these dimensions to the larger existence of a community.