Cornell University // SPRING 2022 // ARCH 2102 // TOM CARUTTHERS, MICHAEL JEFFERSON // ‘[DES]ENTE[R]RAR’

Auburn’s site provides both a geometric and a historic challenge. Auburn is home to two important historic figures in our country’s life, these being William Henry Seward, Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State during his presidency, and Harriot Tubman, the Conductor of the Underground Railroad. These two figures have important landmarks placed in the middle of Auburn, but at present, their monumentality seems to be buried just beneath the surface. This project attempts to unearth the historical pressure of Auburn and tries to connect it with the community of the present and future in a revolving performance of dialogue. Using shear concrete walls and a system of metal trusses, the library bridges the past and future in an endless figure-eight geometry that takes the user from the surface to the underground and backs up to the future, negotiating the ground plane as a horizon of metaphor. Only through interchange, rather than discourse, can we progress forward, and this library provides the circulatory experience to create exchange between different parties in trying political times.