After one year of solving tasks and hours of thinking about the book, this whole experience goes to an end. In my opinion the last few months I experienced a rather cold relationship. One of the reasons was the language barrier, which really was the biggest challenge for me.
Fortunately I had no bigger difficulties in solving the task, because they were designed in superficial way. But unfortunately, this is also my biggest concern about this whole experience. I couldn’t connect with the book in an informative way. Step by step I discovered how the book looks like in different ways.
First, I was overwhelmed by this task. I got a french book from the 18. century… and I did not enjoy the thought about exercises with this old peace of history. Specially because I had no clue how I had to interact with my book. Do I have to read and understand it? Do I have to write about the content?
The first real connection happened in Einsiedeln, where I had the opportunity to meet my book. I think this was the most important part of the exercise, because this time we could touch and see the book. It is a whole different experience than reading it online or as a pdf, especially because it’s very old and differs from todays books. It has other paper, binding, colours, ink and feeling. You’re automatically more concerned and cautious when reading the book. Turning a page was not an easy task. You had to be careful and every movement seemed to hurt your book.
In fact, this was the peak of my experience. The tasks after Einsiedeln were about the look of the book. How the text is organised. How the images are presented. What kind of illustration the text is accompanied by.
In a way I was relieved, that I didn’t had to get into the matter, but somehow it was not a deep relationship, because no task dealt with the content. You got a superficial understanding of your book and its content, but never have I really looked into the topic. I know what my book should be about, but am I really sure? Only if I read it, will the book reveal its secrets.
In the end it was a nice experience, especially the part with Einsiedeln where we had our first encounter with this new friend. I learned how the books were made, which materials they used and that there were actually some rules for layout.
I had my first encounter with a book that old, which taught me how essential these books are. They contributed to the architecture we know today. Every book and every author was a step further in evolution of architecture and brought us to the world we live in now.