When we were first given the task friends with an old book I wasn’t sure about what the use of this exercise should be. Having just started studying Architecture I was still figuring out what eth Zurich had to offer in the first year.
The first task required me to do some background research, giving me an idea of what kind of book I was going to be working with. It introduced me to several digital libraries I hadn’t known. I’m sure that many of us have had the same experience of getting to know new things as we proceeded. “Who wrote the book?, when was it written? and where is it to be found today?” were the given guidelines. It was lying there prepared on the table, waiting for me to be examined and filmed. However the part of recording us examining the book during 20 minutes was interesting, showing that we got a physical interaction with the book.
When I ran the pdf of my book through an optical character recognition engine, it couldn’t recognize the text properly. As it had just little in it. But this was not a thing, as the images explained much more than a text could even.
The taks „Lineage“ which consisted of searching for further editions turned out to be difficult but as we had some great online libraries to look at, I found all I needed to know about further editions of variae architecturae formae.
I enjoyed the trip to Einsiedeln, even though the books presented were not mine, but the direct contact with other books was a new experience.
In the meeting with other books it felt like meeting an old friend after an eternity. it felt familiar and the task consisted of speaking, presenting and exchange ideas of architecture and space.
In conclusion I could say that it was an interesting experience from which I have learned a lot. I’ve never done anything alike and to be honest I don’t think I would’ve done so. As becoming a friend it happened to be an outstanding experience in this first year and sincerely a good start into gta for the next few years.