The way the world is and always has been
by Larry J. Frank
"I never thought there would be such a connection."
I was sitting in the inviting and funky Tomato Head restaurant in downtown Knoxville lunching on a vegetable sandwich and some Zen tea when the above the words were overheard from a young man talking to his friend about the linkages in the physical electric power grid in the Northeast and parts of the Midwest that were interwoven with the recent blackout.
Yet that is precisely what our world is about, even prior to economic and global partnerships. In the above instance, humans effectuated the design. In other instances, nature takes an active role. Today we are realizing what our Paleolithic ancestors understood—that the interconnectedness of things unites us all like the blood in each of us, as Chief Seattle once observed, and that whatever man does to one strand in the web, he does to himself. Interconnections also create vulnerability. And that's OK.
The design of our environment shapes our physical, economic, emotional and cultural textures and attitudes and how we relate to each other. Shaping our environment can help transform and mobilize us, or potentially stymie and debilitate us. Purposefully break a glass in a building and do nothing and other panes of glass will be broken.
Thich Nhat Hanh in "The Heart of Understanding" noted, "There is a cloud in this sheet of paper. Without the cloud there will be no rain, without rain, the trees cannot grow—we cannot make paper. If we look more deeply, we can see the sunshine, the logger...the wheat that became his bread and his father and mother. Without all these things, paper cannot exist. In fact, we cannot point to one thing that is not here—time, space, the earth, the rain, the minerals in the soil, the sunshine, the heat and the wind. Everything co-exists with this sheet of paper—we cannot be just ourselves alone, we have to inter-be with every other thing." So it is with this reflection that we shape our environment.
In shaping our space—the dwellings where we retreat to and live, the streets we travel, the buildings where we work, learn, worship or recreate, the plants we grow, the water we use, the bridges we cross—organic and inorganic, though appearing silent, communicate to us. What are we hearing and experiencing? How are we responding?
The designers and architects of our physical environment have an opportunity to elevate and inspire and to bring hope. The single most exciting leitmotif for the public building designer in a democracy is knowledge, which points to the public library.
To this end, with an understanding of connections and relationships and how design effects the varied textures of our existence and progress, the Knox County Library system has an opportunity to develop a creative model main library and branch system.
Budget constraints and limited staff define the traditional approach, including design. Vision and creativity define the 21st century approach. Our choices on the surface appear limited unless one "stands on top of the desk" for a different perspective and with the realization that environmental integrity and human relationships are at stake—that how we design our environment channels energy and emotions and also ultimately defines our attitudes and our relationships with others.
The design of the land and urbanscapes, physical structures and organizations around us are symbiotically linked to our humaneness, our personal and collective integrity, and our economic wellness. The future of the Knox County Library system will be found in a thematic model with the main library serving as the anchor and each branch focusing on a primary theme while physically (architecturally and landscape) demonstrating its inter-relatedness to the surrounding environment.
Larry J. Frank is the new director of the Knox County Public Library system.
September 4, 2003 * Vol. 13, No. 36
© 2003 Metro Pulse
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