Sketch of the Institute of physics (26th of March 2010)

Institute of physics, as every institution, has its history. The history is glorious, or somewhat less glorious, with ups and downs and people that have passed through the Institute and went. When we say "an institution", we don't immediately think of people but of the building in which those people come every day. But, as I said in a previous post, the buildings have a incomfortable tendency to last longer than people. This can be irritating, but one can also simply get used to it and accept the building as a part of ones world. The building of the Institute is geometrically trivial. It is perhaps suitable for the Institute that deals with physics, and as is well known, physics is the science that often approximates cows with spheres. Viewed from above, the Institute looks as three cuboids (rectangular prisms) connected by two smaller cuboids/corridors (see the image below).

The big cuboids got the inspirational names, "the first wing", "the second wing" and "the third wing". I spend most of the time in the second wing. In my opinion, the most beautiful part of the Institute is a small park with a lot of trees that surrounds it. The trees are already old, and some specimens are impressive. They calmly remind that they've been there for a long time.

The sketch that I present in this post has been made in the autumn last year (2009) when I had some serious trouble quitting smoking. I had already stopped smoking for about half a year, but some weird crisis got hold of me, some anxiousness, I was arriving in the mornings quite nervous and I didn't know what to do with myself. So, the graphite technical pencil replaced the cigarette for the morning coffee. I used to sit on the place marked by the red dot on the plan above, so that my view and the sketch captured a piece of space inbetween the two dashed lines. Every morning at about 09:30, when the shadows were at the same place, I would slowly sip coffee and add some dashes to the sketch. So it lasted for about ten days, until I cooled down again.

I already forgot about the sketch, and I discovered it a couple of days ago, completely by accident, while I was tidying up my office. It is a kind of a smoker's testament, distilled passion of an addict. Each dash replaces a smoke. Pencil against cigarette. If it helps someone, I will be happy.

UPDATE: (23rd of September 2012) Going through the archive of drawings, I found another sketch of the Institute, made in a different technique in year 2011 (below).

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Last updated on 23rd of September 2012.