Geisel Library

This guide to Geisel Library in San Diego starts with architect William Pereira's own description of his concrete tower as giant hands cradling knowledge, and the budget shortfall that forced him from a planned steel sphere into the angled piers you see today. It follows the library onto its canyon-edge site, then jumps decades ahead to 2017, when engineers began wiring those piers with sensors and flying drones around the tower to build an exact digital model of every crack. The guide leaves you waiting with them for the ground to move.