A corbel dome made of books. (Courtesy Miler Lagos)

Artist Miler Lagos is building a library, but think twice before pulling out a book. For his recent installation called Home at the Magnan Metz Gallery in New York City, Lagos constructed an entirely self-supporting dome out of nothing but books.

A corbel dome made of books. (Courtesy Miler Lagos)

The structure is prototypical of corbel dome construction, in which stones or bricks are layered atop one another, gradually cantilevering out until reaching its apex. This construction technique is one of the oldest in the world; the Mycenaean Treasury of Atreus, built around 1250 BCE (see below), was the tallest and widest dome in the world for over a thousand years (finally beat out by the Pantheon). [Via Colossal.]

A corbel dome made of books. (Courtesy Miler Lagos)

A corbel dome made of books. (Courtesy Miler Lagos)

Treasury of Atreus in Greece. (MeRyan / flickr)

Treasury of Atreus in Greece. (Carlos M. Prieto/Wikipedia)

Treasury of Atreus in Greece. (Wikipedia)

A corbel dome in the Qutb mosque in India. (Varun Shiv Kapur/Flickr)

A corbel dome at the Great Mosque in Ajmer, India. (Andrea Kirkby/Flickr)