Phrontisterion, a $100 million library housing Mona owner's David Walsh’s collection of nonfiction, novels, rare books and maps, autographs opens to the public at Berriedale, north of Hobart, from 10am on Sunday.
"I was always all-in on books and libraries," Walsh says. "My first library card was the great leveller, the thing that gave impoverished child-me a chance to seek."
Phrontisterion, a word that suggests ‘a thinkery’, takes its name from Aristophanes’ Clouds, in which the author ridicules the self-certainty of the educated.
Walsh says it is a place to explore, be entertained, and research topics as diverse as ancient brewing methods, winter rituals, heavy metal pollution, Antarctic exploration, science fiction, sex, casinos, charcuterie, and the museum collection.
Rare books include Shakespeare’s ‘First Folio’, a second edition of Sir Isaac Newton’s Opticks, and the sixth edition of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species, the last produced in the author’s lifetime.
There are also books signed by Umberto Eco, J.G. Ballard and Hunter Thompson, and hand-written documents by Balzac, Bowie, Whitman, Flaubert, Einstein, Newton, Marconi and Alexander Graham Bell.
"If you want to know what David is really like, browse his bookshelves," says Mona’s librarian, Mary Lijnzaad.
The way Phrontisterion organises books is as idiosyncratic as the collection itself. It uses novel technology to treat books as curatable objects rather than conforming to the Dewey Decimal System, used by libraries around the world.
Phrontisterion is connected to Mona’s existing buildings via tunnels in the sandstone. It’s located in the space beneath the inverted-ziggurat levels of Elektra (top image), Anselm Kiefer’s monumental concrete amphitheatre.
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