Lacuna, A Public Art Installation and Free Library Made From 50,000 Books

Lacuna is a public temple to books that is made from 50,000 books itself. The 80-foot diameter art installation acts as a free library by encouraging observers to participate by browsing and choosing free books that have been generously donated by the Internet Archive. Its design is from the Flux Foundation, a non-profit large-scale public art organization. A crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter is running now to fund building materials and permits for the project’s completion.

Lacuna is scheduled to be on display and available to visit free of admission at the inaugural Bay Area Book Festival at Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park in Berkeley, California on June 6 and 7, 2015.

Unlike a library, the very walls of Lacuna are created from books, which means that when people remove a book from a shelf, the structure will change and morph as new gaps in the book brickwork are exposed. This is where the magic of Lacuna happens: Lacuna becomes a reflection of the community who interacts with it. It becomes a story told by the many individuals who step inside it and are swept away by the wonder of the written word.

images via Project Lacuna

via Berkeleyside