Even before AI, there was talk about the redundancy of books. What is the point of books now that we buy PDFs/EPUBs/etc. from Amazon, download them from Sci-Hub, Libgen, etc., and never actually read them?
Text: Cătălina Frâncu
Photo: Marius Vasile (library of Mircea Alifanti)
Ten years ago, I went to a meeting at Blecher Institute (reading club) where almost all the writers agreed that books would become luxury objects that only the rich would be able to afford.
A year ago, I came across the library of Mircea Alifanti, an architect, professor, and a person greatly loved by his students; and I thought about something: in this small but sufficient library, books over a hundred years old sit alongside those contemporary to him —mostly, not just about architecture, but also about art, design, philosophy, graphics, and literature.
Together with BAAB, we are creating a series of discussions with those who knew him. Professor Ana Maria Zahariade, a former student and later assistant to Mircea Alifanti, told us how she would listen to him in her first year, sneaking into the studios of the older students. He would start from a minuscule detail and then discursively build an entire socio-cultural context, pulling back the veil of ignorance for thirty students at once.
A glance at his library immediately tells you how such a thing was possible under the Ceaușescu regime. The man had physically collected, in his library, essential works on the European world and beyond. He had a special bookshelf made for them from two types of wood, with a seating area and hiding places, with a display cabinet, shelves, and special drawers for different formats, difficult to reproduce in the rush of our century.
All the more so today, when the production of books is greater than ever and information is everywhere, we need a minimal library, as varied as possible, that we can all read, so that when we add titles to it—be they news, books, social media posts, or others—they have a foundation to land upon.
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published in Zeppeliin #176 (2025 – 2026) – My Own House
