Through visiting the Werner Oechslin library in Einsiedeln, students had the opportunity to get into the astonishing world constructed by integrating the unique books.
The Werner Oechslin Library contains more than 50,000 books where the essential discipline of architecture is accompanied by related disciplines from art theory to cultural history and from philosophy to mathematics.
The following is the abstract of architecture from the library:
“The attempt to physically represent a mental order in an exemplary fashion offers itself in a small library – in the sense of supporting and structuring the contents. The Werner Oechslin Library intends to realize this state of being “systematically ordered” (mentalmente architettato), which helps reveal the collection’s inner content directly to its users. The books are arranged in such a way that they communicate to the reader not only their own presence, as individual publications, but rather – through their order and integration – also the related books of their immediate proximity, their “good neighborhood” (as Aby Warburg called it). The content of the library should be immediately evident as a whole and in its parts. Knowledge is no longer separated but networked and – befitting a library of cultural history – is presented as a complete entity.”