'A Photographer's Love Letter to City Libraries'

Thomas Guignard's photo of the Thomas J. Bata Library, Trent University, Peterborough, Ont., Canada

Swiss librarian and photographer Thomas Guignard "has photographed library buildings across the world, from his current hometown of Toronto to Oxford, U.K. via Detroit in the U.S. So far he's visited 35 libraries and has a bucket list of about 310 that he hopes to visit and photograph in the future," the Guardian reported, adding that he "combines his great loves in the Instagram account @concretelibraries."

"Libraries are the tangible, physical and often monumental representation of human knowledge," Guignard said. "They are built to share and make that knowledge accessible, to foster community, to encourage the sharing of ideas and invite everyone to contribute to that trove of knowledge.... As I visited those libraries, I took more and more pictures, and became more interested in those spaces for their unique aesthetics. I try to use symmetry and pay particular attention to how I align my shots to highlight the sacredness of these spaces."

Guignard sees libraries as symbols of "gathering places for communities.... They are participatory; they can't exist without users, a community--and, of course, librarians and library workers, who do so much more than just stamp out books."

Powered by: Xtenit