Eye into the author’s soul: Tianjin Binhai Library in China

Tianjin Binhai Library has been built as a future challenge; it works with space in a new style and futuristic vision. It shifts the concept of library as a building to the concept of art artefact. Visitors find themselves on a “planet” ruled by books that elegantly stored crawl upwards. It was designed by a Dutch company MVRDV and it metaphorically resembles a great eye and the spherical staircase in the middle its iris. The library has 33 700 m2 and was opened in 2017.

Levitating books

Clear, minimalistic white dominates the interior: it’s not distracting, it is uniform and accentuates the content that embraces. The shelves often serve as stairs or seats. Not only the building, but also the number of volumes is magnificent – there is up to 1,200,000 books. The books are not stored in ordinary even shelves, but rather float in mid-air in air flow since this is what the wavy curves of shelves remind the most.

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A great illusion “from floor to ceiling”

Is it possible that the architect was illusionist? Perhaps he was more a visionary who was able to use the space and create a masterpiece. There are imaginary books in a form of printed aluminium plates that make the back parts of the shelves.

Chinese motto “I do not touch a real book”

Young generation now reads books using apps rather than reading paper- or hard-bound books. However, this doesn’t prevent the books to be kept in a representative space. The means of communication changes, but a writer will still write lines for his hungry readers.

What is her ‘signature’ and what can you find in her fantastic art?

The painter, Roberta Coni, makes use of the silky reflections and of all the multiple assets of oil colours and pigments for restoring colour. In some of her works of art you can find faint prints of bubble wrap or other materials, which seem still wet on the surface. This all gives her paintings the effect of plasticity and dynamism, which will in viewing her work, give you the impression, that her paintings are alive. You wish you could touch to be sure, but of course, touching is forbidden!

The work of the Italian artist in the world

Roberta Coni presented her new exquisite endeavour, named Casta Diva, at the exhibition in Galeries Bartoux on Avenue Matignon in Paris, towards the end of 2018. She displayed thirty expressive paintings, which had entailed 30 personal meetings. Among them are female figures named for example, Sophia, Diletta, Teresa, Aurora, Alice, Elena, Laura and Matilde.

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The artist works with a number of galleries in England, Turkey, China, The United States, Canada, France, Singapore and even Brasil. You can buy her art work, for example, in the LeRoyer gallery in Montreal, Quebec.

A few words about her life

She was born in 1976 in Rome. She graduated from the Academy of fine arts in Italy. In her art work, she has since 2009 been focusing on vast paintings, in which often a face is stepping out of the shadow. Roberta Coni collaborated with galleries from all over the world, she has claimed a lot of respect and received grants from Spain and from The United States. She has also won many awards abroad, in England, Turkey and China.

Not long ago, she set on an ambitious project of creating a painting representation of the entire Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri.