Ray Bradbury is the world's only inadvertant architect
For two years, from early 2010 to April 2012, Ray had an essay that he wanted to work on each time we met. It was always one of the first things he mentioned—“Can we work on my architecture essay today?”
Despite the fact that he had written about his work in the field of architecture in his book of essays, Yestermorrow, and I had surveyed his work extensively in my biography, Ray was resolved to get the entirety of his creations in the field of architecture down in one essay. He wanted me to submit it to Architectural Digest. The essay was never completed—it was never quite right, because he always had more memories or thoughts he wanted to add to it. And it was rough, having been dictated over many months. Even on the occasion of his ninetieth birthday, with guests in the house, he called me into his den and asked me to record a new section. And the very last time I saw him, less than two months before he passed, he asked me again to help him finish it. There was something vital about this essay to Ray Bradbury—he wanted, I think, to prove to the world his influence on the field of architecture. Whatever the case, he very much wanted this essay published. It is presented here and in Ray Bradbury: The Last Interview and Other Conversations, in rough form, for the very first time. —Sam Weller
And there is one last thing very late in time, one last building I would like to work on.
What is it? you ask. Why, a library of course. We should build a library with a great Egyptian mummy out front, a Tutankhamun statue, and his mouth opens and speaks to you, asking, “Where would you like to go in the library?” You tell the mummy where you want to go. There is a front door, of course, but for the young and the young at heart, he sends you down a rabbit hole into the library. When you slide down and arrive, there are books all around and by every shelf there is a different mummy and you speak to them and ask, “What’s on this shelf?” and it tells you. And you say, “I want to go to the stars,” and the mummy says, “In the back of the library there is a spiral staircase that goes up to the stars.” And you climb the stairs and arrive at the top among books on astronomy and you are surrounded by stars. There is a glass window on the ceiling, a moonroof, looking out at the sky. So when you are in the room at night, you can read books about the stars, at least partially, by starlight.
As I look back over the last fifty years of my work in architecture, I can’t help but think about the time I visited the Century of Progress World’s Fair in Chicago in 1933. I was twelve, and as I wandered about that incredible city they had constructed, I fell in love with the future. And after I left the fair, I went home to the small Illinois town where I lived and in the backyard of my parents’ home, I constructed buildings out of paper and cardboard, not knowing that thirty years forward, in my own future, I would start my architectural work helping to build another World’s Fair, the 1964 New York World’s Fair, thus beginning my career as the world’s only accidental architect.