A literary architecture!
The creation of a place dedicated to Quebec literature in a church required several collective interrogations. How to approach the conception of a place dedicated to literature, its creation, its history and its future? How can such a place support multiple uses and clients at the same time? Our conceptualization is carried out in symbiosis, the architecture feeding the scenography, the scenography inducing the architecture. It was enriched by our reflections and our desire to create a place not dedicated to books per se, or dedicated to an exhibition, but dedicated to literature, to its history, and to its process of free creation. A place of discovery, of learning, inviting to understand, and to witness the evolution of our literature.
The house of literature is not meant to be a library, nor a museum, but a place where literature is at the center of everything. A literature carried by our collective history, a literature of the everyday, a literature forging our future. Our project is one of symbiosis, atmosphere and discovery. The space is broken down into "tableaux" where the atmospheres refer to themes, rather than to a chronology, the visitor becomes an actor of words.
His experience begins as soon as he crosses the portico. Already, an architectural scenography begins when he is led to leave the real world and cross the linear hall. This space is a place of detachment, an obligatory passage, that of time and our history. Evoking the constraints and censorship experienced throughout the history of Quebec literature, this emotional contextualization arouses the visitor's curiosity and pushes him to move forward slowly. The surfaces begin to whisper and challenge the visitor. A path of secret cavities, in which he can slide his gaze, suggests the forbidden, the secret and the voyeurism as potential themes.
The books furnish and insert themselves in the space, they create reading alcoves, real small intimate living rooms cohabiting subtly with the scenography. The spaces reserved for reading are of wood, inscribed in the overall intervention, adding to the interior volume, a layer of intervention, that of the book, identifiable at a glance.
Here, the architecture dialogues with time, carrying the words of our predecessors, and rises towards the future to be written.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
Although more complex than the previous project in several respects, this one also caught the attention of the jury, notably because of the strong adequacy of the architectural and scenographic concepts that it underlies and the richness of the spaces, paths and experiences that it suggests. The audition presentation was particularly appreciated, highlighting the qualities of the places created, which are partly due to the omnipresent scenography. The spaces are rich and diverse, even poetic in places. However, this careful planning has a downside, namely that it is precise and strongly conditions the layout, to the point where the jury wonders how it could evolve. Everything is measured and calibrated in order to produce the expected effects, in a rich sequence which, on the other hand, proves to be rather inflexible.
Several architectural and scenographic devices seduced some members of the jury, for example the literary bistro suspended like a theater stage or a church pulpit, but for others, such an end-of-the-path position contradicts the intention expressed in the program to make it the heart of the Maison de la littérature. The bistro thus loses any immediate relationship with the public space, as an extension of the urban space. Also, the deliberate extension of the routes, while interesting from the point of view of discovery, has several disadvantages, including the inability to maximize the use of the space. The long tunnel that leads to the upper levels from the entrance did not convince the jury as a whole, all agreeing that the disadvantages of such a narrow and forced route outweigh the interest it could offer in terms of perceptions. Finally, the possible renewal of the experiences, considering the predetermined configuration of the space, raised questions for which the answers did not appear obvious.
Ultimately, this finalist's efforts to stage literature are highly commendable and were appreciated by the jury, although they led to a rather rigid and complex response. The jury also recognizes, in this project, the competent reworking of the qualities of several recent libraries that emphasize sequential discoveries of space. Paradoxically, these attributes bring the Maison de la littérature closer to these models, when it was intended to move away from them.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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