Our New Library

[Seattle Zack]

Seattle's new downtown central public library is set to open May 23.

Having walked past this building on my way home for the past three years, I can say that it really is a marvel of construction. Architecture is such an interesting study, with its blend of physics and art, and it's so easy to get it wrong.

Witness the nightmare that is the Frank Gehry-designed Experience Music Project here in Seattle, Paul Allen's multimillion dollar paean to Hendrix and rock-n-roll, and you can see what's wrong with giving architects free reign. From a distance, it looks like nothing more than a multicolored jumble of trash bags at the base of the Space Needle. With no right angles -- not even a straight line in its exterior construction -- neighbors on Queen Anne affectionately refer to it as "The Hemorroide."

Not so with the new library. This is a building that's designed to be BIG: it sits unabashedly among its neighbors, the jutting steel crisscrossed beams pointing defiantly in all directions. Unlike our new City Hall and Police Station (there was a lot of money in Seattle a few years back, and many civic improvements got automatically greenlighted by the voters ...), whose design seems almost apologetic in the midst of the legal skyscrapers and functional utility of govenrment offices, the library sets its own tone, perched like a glass and steel toad at the corner of Fourth and Madison.

Aside from the cool Star-Trek retro look of the building, one of the most noticeable features is the revolutionary "Books Spiral" that winds through four floors of the books stack and holds the library's nonfiction collection. The unusual design concept allows the library to increase its nonfiction collection without disrupting its order within the Dewey Decimal system. (Most libraries have to break up collections and house them on different floors when they outgrow their allotted space.)

The Tech Logic automated book conveyance and sorting system that moves and sorts books and other materials uses Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology.

Well, I'm just as excited as hell about the new library. Finally some city money going to something useful, rather than Boeing tax cuts and Nordstrom parking lots. We love to gladhand each other here in Seattle about what a cool place it is (more book sales per capita than any other metropolitan area, more college educated people per capita than any other metropolitan area, more millionaires per capita than any other metropolitan area... blah blah blah). But this time they got it right.

I plan to be there on the opening. Hell, I might even go get a library card again. Aside from the pic, there's more info at www.spl.org.

--Zack

http://www.spl.org/images/slideshow/sw_corner.jpg

 

[Guest]

I'm glad for you and Seattle, Zack. I love libraries, recall with fine sentiment those of my youth. In Wim Wender's film, "Wings of Desire", I loved that the angels hung out in libraries.

thanks for the info, Perdita

 

[wishfulthinking]

Wow, I think someone overdosed on star-trek late one night when they came up with that design!

I can understand the ego thing about building bigger and better, but when will people learn that you have to take the environment into consideration when designing something? There is nothing worse than a collection of historical buildings and then a building that will outdate in 2 years and is an ugly eyesore. There needs to be a balance between old and new.

Eg. Oxford is lovely, but boy is there a collection of sixties retro cement buildings that are so ugly it makes you cringe.

 

[Liar]

Horrible building (and I'm normally a fan of freaked out architecture), but a great purpose, which is the important thing. Go Seattle!

 

[English Lady]

oooh funky building! the funkiest building I can think of anywhere near me is the urbis museum in Manchester

http://www.jonesnow.nildram.co.uk/blog/urbis.jpg


I think it's pretty cool,easy on the eye but alot of people think it's a monstrosity.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

They built a big crystal palace-type buidling here in Chicago a while ago. Now it's called the Jim Thompson center.

The problem was, that inside it was like a greenhouse and got hellaciously hot in the summer. And then, after about 5 years, the glass panels in the ceiling started leaking when it rained, so it was really like a rain forest inside in the summer.

---dr.M.

 

[shereads]

perched like a glass and steel toad at the corner of Fourth and Madison.

Perfect.

I knew what it would look like before I scrolled down.

Miami is on the corner opposite Seattle, in more ways than geographically.

We have a well-attended Book Fair and a couple of independent book stores that have somehow survived the placement of a Barnes & Noble in every neighborhood.

But public money for libraries? How do you have anything left over for sports arenas?

 

[Weird Harold]

The Clark County Library system has some very nice Library buildings, most of them with southwestern flavor to their architecture.

The isn't the best view of the Main library building, but it's the one the Libray system has online. The street side of the building is a bit more elegant, than this bad photo of the parking lot side.

The nice thing about Las Vegas is that it's spread out enough that new libray buildings are usually what sets the style for an area rather than having to fit into the existing styles.

 

[Xelebes]

The Bank of Montreal building in downtown Edmonton has a somewhat similar design (not so green-housey) but yeah, that is all I can think of in what it is similar too. I'm not really into architecture myself but the place looks schnazzy or something.