Wouter Van Acker

Internationalist Utopias of Visual Education: The Graphic and Scenographic Transformation of the Universal Encyclopaedia in the Work of Paul Otlet, Patrick Geddes, and Otto Neurath

During the interwar period, the encyclopaedia became a popular educative instrument for demonstrating knowledge. Within the field of cultural internationalism, the pioneer of documentation Paul Otlet redefined the encyclopaedia as a documentary product or as we would say today a multi-media product. This article discusses the exchange of ideas between Otlet, Patrick Geddes and Otto Neurath and shows how the graphic and scenographic demonstration of encyclopaedic knowledge at the beginning of the twentieth century applied the values of scientific universalism to programs of international education and cultural reform.

Library Towers and the Vertical Dimension of Knowledge

Verticality, and related figures such as the tower, stack, or mountain, are commonly used as spatial metaphors to express the hierarchy that we apply to information and knowledge. But these metaphors that transform the vertical dimension of knowledge into words are also translated into library architecture. Different libraries include, or have been built in the form of, a tower. In these cases, verticality as a spatial metaphor is folded back onto the spatial and architectural field where it originated. Library towers transform verticality as a concept that conveys relations in knowledge into architectural language. The translation of verticality as a dimension of knowledge into architecture thus forms a strange double bind between space and knowledge. This article analyzes how libraries have expressed the vertical dimension of knowledge in their architecture and identifies different approaches that make the vertical dimension of knowledge architecturally present. The library of Ghent University (Belgium), by Henry van de Velde, includes a storehouse of books that has been completely accommodated in a tower. The architecture of the French National Library, by Dominique Perrault, plays with the metaphor of the tower in a semantic manner. Other libraries, such as the “Book Mountain” by MVRDV in Spijkenisse, exploit the book stack architecturally; and some libraries, such as The Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, by Neutelings Riedijk architects, do not build up but down, in the underground, to house their collections.

Architectural metaphors of knowledge: the Mundaneum designs of Maurice Heymans, Paul Otlet, and Le Corbusier

The author discusses the architectural plans of the Mundaneum made in the 1930s by the Belgian modernist architect Maurice Heymans in the footsteps of Le Corbusier and in collaboration with Paul Otlet. The Mundaneum was the utopian concept of a world center for the accumulation, organization, and dissemination of knowledge, invented by the visionary encyclopedist and internationalist Paul Otlet. In Heymans’s architecture, a complex architectural metaphor is created for the Mundaneum, conveying its hidden meaning as a center of initiation into synthesized knowledge. In particular, this article deconstructs the metaphorical architectural complex designed by Heymans and focuses on how the architectural spaces as designed by Heymans are structured in analogy to schemes for the organization of knowledge made by Otlet. In three different designs of the Mundaneum, the analogy is studied between, on the one hand, the architectural structure (designed by Heymans) and, on the other hand, the structure of the cosmology, the book Monde, and the vision of knowledge dissemination as invented by Otlet. The article argues that the analogies between the organization of architectural space and knowledge, as expressed in the drawings of Heymans and Otlet, are elaborated by means of a mode of visual thinking that is parallel to and rooted in the art of memory and utopian imagination. In the Footsteps of Le Corbusier In 1935, the Belgian modernist architect Maurice Heymans (1909–1991) elaborated numerous highly detailed drawings of the Mundaneum as conceived by his compatriot, the documentalist and utopian internationalist, Paul Otlet (1868–1944). The Mundaneum was Otlet’s expanded project LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 61, No. 2, 2012 (“Information and Space: Analogies and Metaphors,” edited by Wouter Van Acker and Pieter Uyttenhove), pp. 371–396.

Analogous Spaces: An Introduction to Spatial Metaphors for the Organization of Knowledge

Spatial Metaphors for the Organization of Information Spatial metaphors abound in the language we use to speak about the organization of information. Well-established notions such as “architecture of databases,” “knowledge architect,” or “information design” convey their meaning by drawing analogies between the organization of information and the organization of space. The notion “architecture of databases,” for example, relies on the idea that a database provides us, like a building, multiple spaces where we can position different objects that we can exploit for different functions. Just as a building is a fixed construction, the interior of which can be furnished and refurbished time and again, we can add or remove objects of knowledge or data in the categories of a database. A “knowledge architect” is another example. Through metaphor, this notion defines the job of someone who, like an architect, combines technical and artistic skills and who is able to coordinate the overall construction process; not for the purpose of constructing a building but for constructing tools to manage flows of knowledge or relevant information that is meant to remain in place (Tonfoni, 1998). “Information design” is a third example. It underscores metaphorically the idea that the development of an information system involves, as is the case in design, a complex process of planning before actual construction can occur. Furthermore, one applies the word “design” to information systems to imply that they are modeled in a smart way, to minimize the user’s efforts and to do so in respect to his or her personal needs. In the field of architectural and urban design, on the other hand, a growing number of metaphors have been borrowed from information and system theory. Leading architects have absorbed into their discourse concepts such as cybernetics, chaos theory, complexity, and self-orga-

Spaces of Information Modeling, Action, and Decision Making

Nowadays, tremendous information sources are preserved, ranging from those of a traditional nature like libraries and museums to new formats like electronic databases and the World Wide Web. Making these sources consistent, easily accessible, and as complete as possible is challenging. Almost a century ago, people like Paul Otlet were already fully aware of this need and tried to develop ways of making human knowledge more accessible using the resources and technology available at that time. Otlet’s ideas about a Universal Network of Documentation and the Universal Book are clear examples of such efforts. Computer science currently provides the means to build digital spaces that consist of (multimedia) information sources connected through the Internet. In this article, we give a nontechnical overview of the current state of the art in information management. Next, we focus on those aspects of Otlet’s work that deal with the organization of knowledge and information sources. Then we study the potential connections between Otlet’s work and the state of the art of computerized information management from a computer scientist’s point of view. Finally, we consider some of the problems and challenges that information management still faces today and what computer science professionals have in common with, and can still learn from, Otlet and his work. Introduction Information management, despite its fast development, faces important technological problems and significant challenges. One of those challenges concerns the need to bridge the gap between how information and knowledge are perceived, used, communicated, and visualized by humans and how they are represented, stored, and managed with computer LIBRARY TRENDS, Vol. 61, No. 2, 2012 (“Information and Space: Analogies and Metaphors,” edited by Wouter Van Acker and Pieter Uyttenhove), pp. 304–324.

Reconnecting library architecture and the information space

This article will discuss how our understanding of the materiality of knowledge has changed during the 20th century and how these meanings got incorporated into the concept of information. Special attention will be given to Paul Otlet, the founding father of documentation, and to Norbert Wiener, the founding father of cybernetics. Furthermore, the article questions what these changes that surround the notion of information imply for the (architectural) conception of the library. If the current discourse treats the library no longer as a space of books but as an information space, what implications does this evolution have for the architecture of the contemporary library?