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Horus
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አብርሆት ቤተ መጻህፍት

Post by Horus » 24 Jan 2022, 10:16


Selam/
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Re: አብርሆት ቤተ መጻህፍት

Post by Selam/ » 24 Jan 2022, 12:42

Simplicity & elegance = high thinking
Horus wrote:
24 Jan 2022, 10:16

Naga Tuma
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Re: አብርሆት ቤተ መጻህፍት

Post by Naga Tuma » 26 Jan 2022, 21:02

The news about this library is one of pleasant that I heard coming out of Ethiopia in recent times. I don't know of one that has pleased me better. I feel like a kid who wishes to get inside the complex, run around, open all the collections of books and materials that I can put my hands on, and explore, and keep exploring more.

The majesty of the building takes me back in time to when I went from the countryside where I was born and grew up to a nearby small city or big town. It makes me feel like that kid again. Compared to where I run around as a kid in the countryside, a few places looked majestic and off the limits to me at the time. An elegant palace, Ras Hotel, another big hotel in the city, an agricultural research station presumably commissioned by the former USSR, and the High School that I later went to and graduated from a long time ago.

On the way to the town and almost a short distance across from the research station, I often walked by a huge ore that was being turned into piles upon piles of gravel.

I don't know how long it took to build those majestic places or how long it took to build this even much more majestic library building. However, even as a country boy, I have wondered what it would have needed to take the piles upon piles of gravel and spread it over the roads in the town for it to have better roads. I suppose there have been many more landmarks added to the city even though I have no idea about the paces at which those landmarks and all those after them were built. A comparison of the paces would be quite interesting.

I am not bringing up the city here to draw attention to it. Not at all. I am simply using it as an example to ask what constraints hold back from transforming small cities like that, which are all over Ethiopia, in relatively short times. Using this town as an example, I imagine that there are plenty of helicopters to take plenty of Engineers for as many reconnaissance flights as needed over the city. I suppose there are many among those Engineers who can go back to office to draw blueprints that their gems of imaginations show to transform the city in a short time. Population means a large amount of labor to mobilize even if it means creative ways of transporting the gravel quickly as needed. including during night times if necessary. Lack of money doesn't necessarily mean lack of labor where there is will and if the city calls for it.

Sure, I am playing with fantasy here from a distance and after absence for a long time. Then again, I have heard that no idea is a bad idea in a brainstorming. On top of that, I have been quite fascinated by one of the two marvels of Civil Engineering in California that were in the top 100 in the 20th century. It is the construction of Lake Oroville Dam. The other is that of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Here is some documentary about the first one. I imagine that big construction equipment is a challenge at local levels. I also imagine creative ways to use what may be available.


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