Speaking Volumes: This Will Kill That

This collaboration with Paul Emmons illuminated the history of the Philadelphia Art Alliance building (a former mansion) for their exhibition about architecture and texts. Our work used Victor Hugo’s “lost” chapter—“This Will Kill That”—from The Hunchback of Notre Dame, in which Hugo says the “Bible of Paper” (printing) will extinguish his beloved “Bible of Stone” (the medieval cathedral). Our piece ran the length of the building in three directions, articulating the lost domestic plan of the mansion, while investigating the bonds between books and buildings.