Aletheia & The Unforgetting of Language: The International Rare Books Library of New York

Abstract

A language dies every two weeks somewhere in the world. (Crystal, 1999). With increasing economic integration on national and regional scales, people find it easier to communicate and conduct business in the dominant languages such as: English, French, and so on. That being so, a growing number of languages will become endangered and eventually, extinct.

It is believed that 90% of the 7,000 languages currently spoken in the world will have become extinct by year 2050 as the world’s language system has reached a crisis and is dramatically restructuring (Graddol, 2004).

With that said, the important question is: Is language death a real concern?

The answer is Yes. As Dalibor Vesely architectural theorist once said: “there is an apparent conflict between something purely economical and something which is purely culturally relevant. And what is worth is culture, this is the goal” (Vesely, 1984). The loss of linguistic diversity calls upon our social awareness. Human development does not solely depend on joining the modern world in the most expedient fashion. Here we are facing a millennium briefing of human culture with each language dying. Thus, This thesis aims to investigate the cultural ramification of language homogenization, and introduces an architectural solution through the design of a Rare Books Library located within the ruins of Dry Dock 1, in the historic Brooklyn Navy Yard.