When I heard of this task at the beginning of the first semester I asked myseif if it has anything to do with architecture. I had my doubts and was confused about this task of which I knew that it was going to last one year. Why should we connect with a book and have a conversation with it when it’s written in the 18th century and in Italian?! I imagined that my friendship won’t be really close due to the Italian language and my small interest in getting to know it better.
The first task was about finding out about your full details more precise if you exist physically and if there’s any digital version of you. And I found out that you’re located in the Oechslin library in Einsiedeln. That led me to the second task. We were instructed to meet in person with our books. I knew from researches from task one that Oechslin library is in the canton of Schwyz. I was told that this library is an amazing place and worth to visit. Nevertheless I wasn’t motivated to go there. You must know “l’architetto prattico” friends of mine had their books in libraries in Zurich.But when I arrived at this cloudy foggy place I was happy to be in Einsiedeln. I wasn’t happy because I knew that I would get to know you right away more the fact that I had some time with friends and not to stay at the ETH. But when we entered this property of yours I was positively overwhelmed by your housing. I kind of liked the atmosphere which the architecture radiated. And then you were in front of me on the table and I was able to browse. The illustrations were astonishing and for the first time I felt a connection between us. They had carefully and exactly been drawn! I did understand a little of you even if you were written in Italian. Probably because your illustrations are referring to the text. I think they were like the key to our connection. Afterwards I like to say to you that it’s interesting to know where you live and now I much more appreciate the value of such a library. Task number three and four was difficult to feel close to you because I didn’t want to spend a lot of time speaking to you.
In the end I was surprised of how deep I got to know you in certain tasks. To be honest it wasn’t easy to communicate with you in the first, third and forth task. But sometimes we needed a break of each other and I think it’s also related to our amount of work during the semester, don’t you think, l’architetto pratticho? I couldn’t really focus on you. It would have been easier for me if I had had the possibility to borrow you from the library. The more I was forced to communicate with you the better the connection got. But right now I feel more connected than ever to you.