Inside the Archive

My internet stopped working when I was in the middle of posting this last night, so you have to pretend I posted it on Friday and then all the wording about "today" makes sense. It seems as if I'll just have to live with sporadic internet access!

Today was rather quiet in the archive, so I thought I'd use the opportunity to take some pictures of what it looks like on the inside. Despite the obvious age of the building, the inside is really modern and features some impressive art. The way it's set up, you walk in on the ground floor, which turns out to be the top floor of the place. Here's what you see when you walk in:

I don't remember who the artist of that one is, but I think it's pretty cool. Notice the big skylight above. From that floor you walk down a staircase to a common area:

You can see where we all hang our coats, and there's a piano, a sitting area, and a staircase down one more floor. This is hanging on the wall in that room:

Oh it's just an original Andy Warhol, you know, no big deal. The woman is Mrs. Paul Sacher, the one who had all the money that built this place. I've been working on this middle floor, in the reading room:

Not such a bad place to be all day! Here's my spot, where I kill my eyes from going back and forth between the microfilm and the laptop:

Today no one else was around, but usually there are a couple of other people working in there. That's why I don't have a very good spot. Some girl claimed the primo space right in front of the window and I got stuck with my back facing the window. That girl hasn't been around for a few days, but she left a whole bunch of stuff claiming the good desk! How long do I wait before I move it all and claim the space for myself?

Here's the view from one of the windows:

When the trees bloom, we'll lose a lot of the view so that will be sad but at least it'll be green!

And here's the view from another window:

That's one of the ferries you can take to cross the river. They're powered solely by the current of the river, which is pretty amazing. Another girl working in the archive told me that the captain of this particular ferry speaks some Japanese, which got her really excited because she's from Japan. Apparently he gets so many Japanese tourists that he's picked up some of the language!