The project seeks to record the essence of human culture in its many forms. www.bibliotecadelsol.com
INTRO
LIBRARY
VISION
COLLECTION
LOCATION
CONTACT
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INTRO
The library in the high mountains of Andalusia preserves important knowledge for future generations. The philanthropic project seeks to record the essence of human culture in its many forms.
It is in no sense a time capsule, but a continuously updated record of life on earth in its broadest spectrum. Today, the project houses thousands of books, blueprints, maps and even a collection of seeds. The library hopes to stand as an inspiring symbol of the human aspirations, promoting art, science and spirituality, emphasizing sustainability as a core theme.
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LIBRARY
The library is a project realized by the Mataha Foundation [1], a small non-profit organization, established by the contemporary artist Louis De Cordier[2]. The foundation's mission is to enhance the well-being of humanity. The Mataha Foundation pursues this goal by realizing and supporting holistic projects that draw on knowledge of the past and present for the prosperity of future generations. The foundation started its program by supporting the ongoing archaeological research into the recently discovered labyrinth of Egypt at Hawara[3]. This colossal temple, a legendary building lost for two millennia under the ancient sands of Egypt, was described by many classical authors such as Herodotus and Strabo as containing 3000 rooms full of hieroglyphs and paintings. A giant stone book made by the ancients as a legacy for humanity. To continue its mission the Mataha Foundation developed the "culture ark" in the high mountains of Southern Spain, storing important books in a safe way for reflection, awareness and redundancy. The library's concept is holistic, from the overall mission to its connection with the resilient local population. Experimentation with many architectural concepts and site locations was undertaken since the launch of the project in 2009. The outcome was to build the library in the heart of the Spanish Sierra Nevada range, situated at 2000 meter above sea level, and 1 hour driving above the nearest mountain village. Numerous public and private libraries exist around the world; but all are in geographical, political, environmental or urban locations that may potentially be hazardous, nor were they specifically designed to resist time, making this little dome complex in Andalusia, named Biblioteca del Sol, the only ‘culture ark’ on the planet. The library derived its name from the Arabic expression Sulayr, meaning 'mountain of the sun', which is how the Moors[4] referred to the Sierra Nevada. After all, the mountain of the Sun of the ancients, was the first place in the entire Mediterranean where the light of the sun fell. Where are we going? These questions are probably the most fundamental to mankind. The library project founds its origin in the quest to understand our place in the present world. How we have become what we are in this electronic age? What's the right thing to do? The project is among many things, a contemporary art project. Over the past century art has transformed itself from its preoccupation with beauty and the representation of the world, into something much more radical. Today, art has transformed itself into what rather can be described as a vast, chaotic yet effective research program that looks critically at the foundations of knowledge and perception, and the structures that modern society has chosen to construct upon these cultural foundations. With the goal to assist man in this time of change by creating transforming experiences, reshaping modes of perception. Leading the world to pathways beyond sustainability. The library project is about the awareness of the uncertainty that is an integral part of life, as well as the chaos inherent in the human condition. The library project is not only about questioning the industrial civilization we life in, but also the dominant culture on which it is based. Grasping the vicious spiral that ties the dirtying of the environment to the sullying of the spirit. We see a global repression of the nature of our own bodies and minds by a culture of exploitation, existing for millennia in an almost unchanged form. The human is a mental-spiritual being. Guiding stories, images, and insights of love and resistance will continue to accumulate in his cells until he recognizes and realizes them. The library project doesn't regard its mission to collect and preserve cultural works as self-evident. The project is as much about criticizing than honoring our cultural heritage. The library was created as a statement to help starting up the global reaction of change in the coming century. Fully supporting the possibility of radical upheaval the Biblioteca del Sol was realized, not as a memorial, but a source of life. Opposing all cunning and deceit. DIGITAL AGE
The impact that digital technologies have on cultural forms can no longer be denied. New technologies as well as the overall and instant availability of information, not only transform our daily life and routine, but also redefine society towards the concept of fluidity. All in all this represents a clear instability of the role of old traditions, and manifests a distinct desire for new content and tasks within the changing information society. It would be disastrous not to open up towards these technologic developments. Opening up meaning not only becoming aware of its dangers, but also to apply its many great opportunities in the fulfillment of set goals. The library aspired the task to emphasize the shift in the preservation of library materials in a confronting way. Even more so since the borders of written information and digitalization are totally dissolving. Man became believing so unconditionally in the titanic ship of progress, that the library builders saw it as their mission to realize a cultural lifeboat as a hardcore back-up for the future, confronting contemporary taboos surrounding our civilization's predicament. In contrast to a world of ongoing digitalization, the library project only preserves printed matter. Digitized information, especially on the Internet, has such rapid turnover these days that loss is the norm. Mankind is developing severe amnesia as a result; indeed we may have become too conditioned to notice it. The trust in digital technologies are drastically reshaping our cultural world on all levels. This reflects also how books are preserved by libraries. Many of their materials are moving to “off site repositories” to make space in central buildings for more meeting and online work spaces. These repositories are filling quickly and prompt the de-accessioning of books. Traditional libraries already started thinning their collections and throwing out books based on what had been digitized on the internet. While we understand the need to digitalize cultural holdings, we believe this should be done thoughtfully and aware of its long-term implications. With the global explosion of digitalization, we might find ourselves living one day in a digital dark age[5]. A possible future where it will be difficult or impossible to read historical electronic documents, because they have been stored in an obsolete medium, or even totally gone. A monumental risk that needs to be mitigated. Remember the faith of previous complex societies, which lost the human scale of things. Without cultural records, mankind has no memory to learn from its successes and failures. Proven many times over, ignorance of history condemns us to repeat things. Is it not our common duty to safeguard the most valuable knowledge in the best way possible? An important responsibility we face that facilitates the realization of specially designed repositories, such as the library in the Sierra Nevada mountains. After all, a library still is the best way to preserve the important aspects of man's written information for a future made by hand. Not DVD's, hard disks, chips, or the Internet. DESIGN
The underground repository was constructed to last for millennia. The library builders created a maximum of storage space, efficiency and durability, with a minimum of budget, labor and visual impact. The building consist of a 8m diameter dome shaped bunker, surrounded by 4 book vaults. Created to separately contain knowledge about art, science, spirituality and a seed collection. The building was designed to blend in an existing massive terrace, once created by the Moors centuries ago to produce green tea or silk (mulberry trees). The library was conceived not to be open for public use, not only because of its mere role as being a back-up, its remote location, but the presence of many good communal libraries in the area for the day-to-day access to books and information. Because of this specific approach, we could focus to optimize the environment for physical preservation that facilitates the most basic access. The repository is designed to both borrow cold and keep cold. The structured borrowed cold by digging deep into the ground, where the temperature well below the frost level remains fairly constant 11,11 Celsius (52°F). This works two ways. The deep-down earth library is slow to be affected by freezing high mountain surface temperatures in the winter, and protected by the hot Andalusian summer heat. The repository will maintain excellent storage temperatures between 0° & 13° Celsius (32° & 55°F), comparable with the statistics of several underground root cellars[6] in the region. An inbuilt proper ventilation system, creates a constant airflow to help reduce excessive humidity and thus preventing undesirable condensation. The underground complex has 2 hatches, one as a main entrance connected with the dome, a second directly with the seed vault, to be used in case the first would become blocked. The main entrance is located at the end of a dolmen-style cave, connecting the library with the outside world. We intentionally made the entrance narrow, making physical entering difficult to prevent the building to be used for other purposes than the long term store of small items. Protecting its content by design, from the use as a living unit or animal stables. Based on the design principle to use the current technologies and construction possibilities, the library builders created a resistant structure that otherwise would be very difficult to realize in a possible energy descent future. The constructors applied the most innovative construction technics and materials, such as a special concrete mix and replacing steel by a combination of glass fibres and composite rebar[7] to reinforce the concrete structure. Steel is susceptible to oxidation (rust), leading overtime to cracking and deterioration of reinforced concrete. Composite rebar won’t rust or corrode, so it’s ideal for a long-term structure, making it extremely durable and maintenance free. Another advantage is that the tensile strength of fibre rebar is several times higher than steel, providing excellent fatigue resistance, making it suitable for cyclic loading situations, like in its seismical active location. From an electromagnetically sensitive viewpoint, both glass and polymer are inherently nonconductive, so they won’t attract lightning strikes. The overall building is calculated to cope with strong earthquakes and has a pressure resistance, comparable with the load hundreds of meters under water, making it resistant to avalanches or a large rolling stone. SACRED ARCHITECTURE
The library was envisioned to be more than just an underground book repository. It needed also to touch the realm of the sacred. Not in religious terms but rather in the notion of free space, where the mind can wander through the spatiality of nothingness, the void. The inner 'empty space' was mold on a geodesic dome[8], a multidimensional pyramid. Physical confrontation is a vital factor in the experience of the library. Its architecture is based on a fundamental one-to-one experience of space, and will continue to survive even when long lost its content. The project is a reaction on the contemporary cultural mindset, which lost its anchoring in past traditions, long-term thinking, but most of all, many of human's values and integrity. It hopes to transmit a message of hope towards many young people who are struggling the conceptual storm of our uncertain times and deeply disillusioned with the spiritual emptiness of industrialized civilization. The project supports however the driving force of the development of civilized mankind, thinking that the impetus is right, but not the course. The project's goal was to transcend the predicaments of the human condition, by producing an architectural womb that is strong, timeless, deeply rooted in its local context and universal. To do so, things and experiences were researched that do not change in design, questioning the dictums within the Egyptian, Roman[9], Moorish, Christian, Jewish, and other ancient cultures, with the wish to reinstate them in the realization of the library as a small cultural temple. In many ways the project is as much about making sense of our world, as it is about reflecting what we should do, or how to prepare for a cultural shift. The library was constructed in the winter of 2012-2013 by Alex Brimmell & Son (dome builders) with a team of volunteers from the Beneficio eco-village near Orgiva [10]. The project was helpfully coordinated by Mark Knight (author)[11], and developed by Louis De Cordier (visual artist).
1 Mataha Foundation > www.matahafoundation.com
2 Louis De Cordier > www.louisdecordier.com
3 Labyrinth of Egypt > www.labyrinthofegypt.com
4 The Moors invaded in Spain 711 CE. They transformed the Alpujarras into an earthly paradise, and here they retired to bewail the loss of their beloved lands in Al-Andalus. In 1568, they rose up in a final revolt, which led to the expulsion of all Moors.
5 Digital dark age > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_dark_age
6 Root cellars > underground vegetable preservation room.
7 Composite rebar > www.schoeck-combar.com
8 Geodesic dome was invented and patented by Buckminster Fuller, who dreamed it would house humanity.
9 The Romans invaded Spain in 206 BCE. A large part of the Alpujarran roads was built by them.
10 Beneficio community > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beneficio
11 Mark Knight > http://www.waykiwayki.com
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VISION
Pre-industrial peoples had elaborate traditions and knowledge that wove together the needs and interests of generations. The industrial interval, however, has shredded traditional cultures, and replaced them on one side with a global spectacle and on the other with hyper-specialization. Once the latter will be totally gone, the generations following this demise will run the high risk of losing themselves in fear and becoming cultureless wraiths condemned to subsist on decaying memories of what life was like before the crash, but with few living traditions and basic knowledge to guide them[1]. In the light of this massive change, the library project, therefore, encourages people all over the world to conserve essential knowledge, along with understandings of healing, edible and medicinal plants, the practical arts of the growing and preservation of food, the making and use of hand tools, the making of clothing, the building of houses, as well as the building and operation of solar, wind, water, and biomass-powered energy systems. The project supports also people to educate and keep important knowledge about how ecosystems function, or about biology, radiation[2], languages, astronomy, geology, and geography. In addition to practical skills, the project is seeking people to maintain certain aspects of social knowledge: the skills of how to live together in non-hierarchical and non-oppressive communities, historical and cross-cultural knowledge of spirituality, philosophy, literature and the arts. In time we could conceivably create a planet covering network of micro-societies in balance with the earth and overcome past mistakes. Emphasizing the ethically responsible free human being, the project envisions the integration of the best of science with the best of natural living, discarding destructive and wasteful technologies and lifestyles of contemporary civilization. The local mission of the library project is to promote and support sustainable living in the Alpujarras. The library project targets local habitants and future settlers. People of various walks of life, and different nationalities, to actively co-collect books in accordance to their specific interest and language. People seeking new joyful and healthy ways to live, with the aim to love and live from the heart, and try to stop living from the mind and ego. With their primary emphasis on seeking freedom and inner peace, and their overall mission to prepare for the transition times, with a focus on surviving and thriving when food, transport, and energy industries might sputter out. All independently contributing to the redundancy of the region and organically co-creating a global awareness. This community as a whole is to go above fear, and constituted to sur-thrive the power down of our unsustainable industrial civilization. The library project envisions to empower the resilience and coherence of this regional web of independent families and to support interest to preserve an assortment of printed knowledge in their homes. Transforming the culture ark beyond a single building, into a small distributed network of mini libraries, where copies are stored, read, studied, and applied. The advantage of this concept is that it is far more redundant, and that it can be extended and enlarged, without limits. The library project hopes to contribute to the ongoing viral realization of a self-sufficient Alpujarras by functioning as a beacon light towards the world running on emptiness. Taking the steps today to achieve visions of a better world, and inspire others to join the cultural revolution in the process of providing peoples needs within the ecological limits. There is hope for the future, today, tomorrow and coming.
1 Text fragment from the book 'Powerdown' by Richard Heinberg (New Society Publishers 2004)
2 Radiation > nuclear power plant meltdown related radioactive long term pollution, might become a very important issue in the future.
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COLLECTION
The Library project is building a physical archive for the long term preservation of books and seeds, individuals find important enough to send or hand over to us. All depending on their action to do so. Realizing a mirror of what man truly find important to safe, stripped of all theoretical discussions and critics about what it should store. In this way creating a collection of cultural artifacts, based on the input from persons who are committed to the mission of the project. Correct, the project has no clear pre-outlined view or concept about what to store or not. The founders opted to simply build-as-we-go, within the fluidity of contemporary society. Building up a collection of materials, animated only by the future beholder's distinctly creative and attentive gaze as truly valuable, or rather a kind of accumulated waste. BOOKS
There is a recurrent topic in sustainability related literature, blogs and podcasts, in which it is promoted to collect and carefully store an assortment of books intended to help communities transit the energy descent and regenerate after collapse. It is also an important theme in medieval history. We are familiar with the ancient Greek and Roman classics, only because the books were deliberately preserved through the Dark Ages by monks and others who recognized their worth. However, we do also remember the dangers of storing controversial and revolutionizing information, resulting into the numerous intentional libricides[1], which constituted an unrecoverable damage to cultural heritage. Not to mention the sometimes brutal prosecution of its preservers. Therefore it was very crucial to embed the library project in a wider distributed network of anonymous and concealed repositories. If we are successful and lucky enough to prevent total robbery or destruction of the repository by looters, oppressive governments or war, then this set of cultural materials might last for centuries and could be beneficial in ways that we cannot predict. The library project's attempt is to seek that the basic knowledge essential to humanity will be available when it is needed. The ambition is therefore not to preserve one copy of every published work. The universe of titles has been estimated at close to several hundred million items. Many of these are rare or unique, so we do not expect even a minuscule fraction to be send to our project. But the opportunity to preserve over hundred thousands items is possible. The project hopes to mobilize people to collect now, when books are still common and easily available, 24/24. To this end, we propose that you send us a book as a legacy for the future: It could be a book about history, art, science, technology, craft, spirituality, nature, poetry, philosophy, or even fiction. When you have selected a book. Write a personal note in it if you like, wrap it and label the package well. Then send it to our postbox in Spain, where it will be handled and stored in the library. Someday, we’ll all be glad you did. Early 2010 the Mataha Foundation started to buy hundreds of books about medicine, agriculture, animal keeping, architecture, food preservation, nuclear protection,… to offer the culture ark project already the most fundamental information for the times ahead. In 2011 the Mataha Foundation continued its acquisition program with the purchase of regional maps, a world atlas, star charts, dictionaries, science handbooks, and a complete encyclopedia. Mid 2011 the Mataha Foundation continued its program with Western and Eastern canon literature books, philosophy, spirituality and art. In 2012 we started our 'send a book' program on this website, which is bringing in valuable books on a steady basis from around the world. The Mataha Foundation is currently soliciting book donations from publishers. However, many more books are welcome to cover the wide arch of essential knowledge. We encourage people to keep on sending. The facility is managed by the Mataha Foundation, though there are no permanent staff on-site. Founder Louis De Cordier who lives and works in the Alpujarras, is personally coordinating the handling of the books. Prior to the storage in the repository, all copies and documents are archived manually and separately vacuum sealed to meet the highest standards for preserving books. The vacuum sealing method facilitates long-term preservation of organic library materials by excluding a wide range of decay environmental factors. Key decay factors include; time, relative humidity, pests, pollutants and light exposure. Particulate and gaseous pollutants such as soot, ozone, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides can cause dust, soiling, and irreversible molecular damage to materials. Pollutants are exceedingly small and not easily detectable or removable. The strong airtight and watertight vacuum plastic-mylar bags give protection against all pollutants, but also light, atmospheric pollution, floods, damp, mould, mildew, insects, and even rough handling and damage in transit. All to extend the shelf life of the books (and seeds) as long as possible. A future ultimate way of preserving written knowledge will be to laser the current vast amounts of digital available books[2], on a special designed high durable and time resistant rolls of plastic foil. Bringing back alive the old time bookrolls. SEED BANK
Garden seeds more than anything else are living cultural links in an unbroken chain reaching far back into antiquity. It can’t be overstated how much amount of history is contained in seeds, both what has come before and what may potentially come after their brief involvement. (Makes you wonder about ourselves as living human beings.) Our Stone Age ancestors began identifying and domesticating food plants thousands of years ago, with the simple act of selecting seeds for replanting. Sustaining themselves for millennia with healthy food. The library's seed vault hopes to act as a focal point for preservation and encourage public interest in traditional vegetables, fruit, grains and herbs. The project's seed collection benefits from the cooperation by a network of organic growers committed to collecting, conserving, and sharing heirloom seeds. Our local seed mission is to strengthen the Alpujarran garden heritage for hard times, by building up a collection of saved seeds. With the goal of making old-time varieties freely available to the local gardeners, when they become more interested out of necessity to save seeds themselves, instead of buying commercial Hybrid varieties. Non-Hybrid or Open-Pollinated seeds allow the gardener to collect seeds from a crop for future planting. Hybrid seeds do not. An open-pollinated (OP) variety is one that breeds true from seed, meaning the seed saved from the parent plant will grow offspring with the same characteristics. OP seed is produced by allowing a natural flow of pollen between different plants of the same variety. Alpujarran heirloom varieties are OP varieties with a long history of being cultivated and saved within the isolated rural area. This often resulted in the seeds slowly developing resistances to local diseases and insects, and also gradually becoming well adapted to the unique climate and soil conditions in the gardens throughout the Alpujarras. In contrast to the Global Svalbard seed vault, the library project is not located on a death frozen island, near the North Pole. It's embedded in one of the most active organic gardener cultures in the world today. In a area which is GMO free, internationally protected as a biosphere reserve and a well-known historic safe heaven for garden varieties, such as numerous delicious tomatoes, peppers, beans, potatoes, carrots, corn, squash, lettuce, garlic, wheat… Sowing the seeds for tomorrow.
1 Destruction of the Library of Alexandria, Library of Baghdad, the Aztec codices, the biblioclasms under China's Qin Dynasty, and the Nazi party.
2 Project Gutenberg http://www.gutenberg.org/ & internet archive http://archive.org/
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LOCATION
After intense research, and several prospection visits to places all over the world, the Spanish mountainous Alpujarras (South of Granada) turned out to be the best location for the realization of the culture ark. Searching in the region for months, the most unique high mountain property was bought to support the library's construction. Situated at the very end of a green lush valley, overlooking the Mediterranean sea and the mountains of Africa. Las Alpujarras is a 70km long collection of valleys along the Southern slopes of the Sierra Nevada. It is a mixture of dramatic mountains, deep ravines, sloping hillsides, huge gorges, and the most breath-taking views. It is full of clusters of beautiful white washed villages, often seemingly clinging together on the side of a steep mountainside, which are a traditional feature of this area. The villages' pre-oil age transport infrastructure is still intact and not affected by modern urbanization projects. They breath the health and peace of the human scale, favoring going on foot, or by horse. The settlements are interconnected with a fast network of walking paths. These tracks have been attributed to any particular culture, perhaps because they seem to have been there for ever. Las Alpujarras has often been described as 'magic' due to its natural uniqueness, and old-world quality. It has a sense of timelessness and its own pace of life. The Alpujarran people are very welcoming and new settlers are soon made to feel part of the colorful community, living in the belly of the Sierra Nevada. The Sierra Nevada is an extensive mountain range in the region of Andalusia in Spain. UNESCO has declared the whole range to be a biosphere reserve, in recognition of its exceptionally diverse plant, bird and animal species. There are over 20 peaks over 3000 meters above sea level, which makes it the second highest mountain range in Europe after the Alps. The area boards the Mediterranean, and is predominantly known for its warm temperatures and abundant sunshine. By its foothills lies the beautiful historic city of Granada and the ports of Málaga and Almería. Granada has some of the most remarkable architecture from the Muslim[1], Jewish and Christian past, and is situated where the Sierra Nevada mountains meet the lower fertile plains. The Sierra Nevada, is part of a greater mountain system, the Baetic Cordillera. An ancient range, steeped in history, where man's hominid ancestors first settled in Europe a million years ago, having passed across the Strait of Gibraltar. The Sierra Nevada range was formed during the geological upheavals that also formed the European Alps and the Atlas Mountains of Northern Africa. The range as observed today was formed 65 to 1.8 million years ago, during the Tertiary Period, from a collision of the African and Eurasian continental plates. As regards a potential cooling of the North Atlantic region, triggered by weakening of the gulf stream[2], the Sierra Nevada is positioned at a favorable latitude since it lies at a safe distance from the polar regions. Archaeological and genetic evidence strongly suggests that Southern Spain acted as one of the major refugia, from which Northern Europe was repopulated following the end of the last ice age,10,000 years ago. The Alpujarras is an excellent location due to the absence of volcanoes and nuclear power plants in the wider vicinity. However, from a nuclear perspective, Europe remains one of the most critical locations on the planet because of its extensive arsenal of nuclear facilities. Europe fortunately still has an area like Southern Spain that is nuclear free, yet with a good transport network, and a current stable democratic society, unlike some other suitable areas in lesser-industrialized countries. The Alpujarras in the Sierra Nevada mountain range is chosen, so as to locate the library in a remote and low populated mountain region, close to the coast. The overall height provides abundant pure natural drinking water and fresh natural breathing air. The Alpujarras region is one of great natural beauty. The Alpujarras is famous throughout Europe, for its unique mini-ecology. Because of its warm Southerly climate combined with a reliable supply of water from the rivers running off the Sierra Nevada. Its farmlands are constantly watered by the melting snow from above, constituting a high-altitude oasis of greenery, which stands in great contrast to the arid foothills below. The valleys of the Alpujarras are among the most fertile in Spain, though the steepness of the terrain means that they can only be cultivated in small terraced fields, so that many modern agricultural techniques are impractical. In general, however, the impossibility of mechanizing agriculture in the Alpujarras, means that there will never be competition from industrial agriculture, under modern intensive conditions. Greatly favoring extensive and organic farming, such as permaculture[3], which method is widely been used very successfully along the hills of this ideal transition land. Seen by many to become a sanctuary for humanity.
1 Granada contains the world famous Moorish Alhambra palace.
2 Weakening or even shutdown of the gulf stream is a postulated effect of climate change.
3 Permaculture is a design philosophy, which develops sustainable architecture and agricultural systems modeled from natural ecosystems.
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SEND A BOOK
The mission of the library project is to secure that the knowledge essential to humanity’s recovery after a societal upheaval will be available when it is needed. To this end, we propose that you select a book as a legacy for the future. Write even a personal note in it, wrap it and label the package well. Then send it to our office in Spain, where it will be handled and distributed to the high mountain library. Someday, we'll all be glad you did. send books to:
Louis De Cordier
Apartado 91
18440 Cadiar
Spain
Please note: Only use regular post services. Do not use CEP services (DHL, FEDEX, TNT, UPS...) to send your letter or books to the postbox address above. CEP packages are not accepted at the post office and are returned to sender.
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CONTACT
Mataha Foundation
website: www.matahafoundation.com
email: info@matahafoundation.com
phone: +34 682 360 276 (speaks French, English, Dutch, Spanish)
