Prolog

Prolog

Vernes, András

Vienna, Austria

005-LF-S001

2014

Technische Universität Wien

Student

1st Place, Student Category

By 2050 the technological development will have reached a total digitalization of all life aspects. Information entered a total-accessibility and flooded public as well as private spaces. Real world information is now always overlaid by an augmented reality layer displaying all vital-, life-, news- and statistic-self optimization feeds. Education now fits seamlessly into this system complexity and optimization process. Hence, libraries will become only archives accessed through the Internet for quick searches in our digital lives, later quickly forgotten due to our fragmented attention. The new Athenæum will embody the anti-thesis to this development by generating a place of disconnection and focus.

In the future the Athenæum of Philadelphia will take an unusual position in this new age. It’ll disconnect itself from the digital grid, regarding its knowledge and its physical appearance. The lifted and stacked structure will focus the attention of its users by fading out the surrounding interferences of the digital age. The surroundings will fade out each step on the way up in the tower of the Athenæum. The public base will be completed by individually adaptable platforms. Thus creating a place of study and a retreat from the all-available information overkill as an analogy of a wellness oasis of today. The new Athenæum will be a place of slowly gained wisdom.

46179977