When I first visited Aquin in 1985 it was for me a prodigal return to the country that I left 22 years before. This exodus from Haiti turned out to be a defining change in my life. Similarly, finding myself in Aquin, the birth place of my wife, was another defining shift. It was a renaissance for me. For the last 24 years I have enjoyed the love of family and friendship that Aquin brought me. It seems now that I have always been from Aquin and that I have lived it, through the many late night tales and reminiscences of friends and family, I have vicariously traveled from Poste Gaille to Bord de Mer, Zanglais and back to En Bas la Ville.

This bond with Aquin has restored in me a connection to my country and the need to enrich its vibrant culture. In these last 24 years, I have met extraordinary individuals and come to know the resilience of a people. This resilience is the essence behind the creation of the library. It is the collective essence in our community to recreate Aquin anew.

Walking through Aquin, as an Architect, my mind harkened to the past to the original planners and their thinking. Its main square, the Place d’Armes, was the focus and center of their vision for Aquin. The planning of the town, nestled in the plain before the bay was, in its time, forward thinking and modernist. The houses around the Place d’Armes, the Church, the Catholic school, the now ruins of the wharf speak of their modernist and forward thinking view – a view to the future. What remains of their original plans and ideas are still in use today.

When it came time to design the library, I wanted to be forward thinking and plan a library that can serve us today and in the future. I wanted to create a library that abandoned mediocrity. I want the library to say to our children that we believe in the promise of their minds.

My hope is that the realization of the library will be a catalyst for new projects that will bring social and economic change to Aquin.