re collections of Berlin Part 2 Project 2011 Thomas Hudson University of Sheffield | UK So I have erected before you one of his dwellings, with books as the building stones; and now he is going to disappear inside, as is only fitting. – Walter Benjamin, “Unpacking my Library”Located within the courtyard of a Berlin relic, the new library grows from the foundation of a fictitious curator buried deep in its walls; approaching an architecture of the voyeur, and the intimate connection between subject and object. Based upon Walter Benjamin's Berlin, the project aims to connect literature's prowess over the imagination, and the creation of a wholly uncanny space; be it uncomfortable or not. From concept to completion, drawings and models have been used as rigorous research tools, to begin to convey the similarities shared by both space and the imagination alike.The project manifests as the insertion of Benjamin’s ‘living library’; a second-hand memorial to the history of Berlin, and his own means in which to uncover, analyze, archive and re interpret fragments of his own memory; “one that is not spared the scars from the struggle for a better order”.While existing as a polemical entity, the project explores the role of Berlin’s building fabric as an appropriate ‘relic’, whilst addressing issues of overbearing development within Berlin, squatting, public space & cautious urban renewal. Thomas Hudson Tutor(s)Mr Russell Light