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In a hopeful vision architecture and architectural institutions, such as the Athenaeum, will have arrived by 2050 at a new technological, digital and social paradigm that is capable of making collaborators out of users or spectators (W.Benjamin, “The Author As Producer”).
This will encompass:

-          a new role of public and semi-public spaces within the building to accommodate new individualized and collaborative work and study modes

-          new digital, organizational and mechanical means to store and make accessible analog and digital information and artifacts

-          a material culture that is in sync with ecological demands to ensure an equitable future

The 7-story New Athenaeum has a distributed program enabling its mission to make accessible architectural knowledge through new technology and social interaction. All of the archival holdings, organized into an automated wall, store and display the collections. The archive energizes the building, mediated with the rest of the program through a full height atrium. Institutional functions are bracketed by public programming on the lower and upper floors, with exhibition, library and multi-purpose spaces.  The 6^th floor interfaces the public with the collection and interlinks the building’s volume with the city. An experimental holographic environment allows for state-of-the-art means of investigation.