Comments on: If Picasso ever painted a library, it might look like this.

If Picasso ever painted a library, it might look like this.

profwhat — Thu, 20 May 2004 07:08:14 -0800

Virtual tour of the new Seattle Central Library. Built from a critically acclaimed design by Rem Koolhaas, this library opens Sunday. The design makes me want to paint my staircase bright yellow, or maybe move to Seattle.

By: GeekAnimator

GeekAnimator — Thu, 20 May 2004 07:22:52 -0800

Absolutely gorgeous.

By: sunexplodes

sunexplodes — Thu, 20 May 2004 07:29:42 -0800

agreed. gorgeous images... *insert big butt here* it looks like the acoustics are terrible... lots of relective surfaces, high ceilings with lots of reverberation. anybody from seattle to confirm or deny this?

By: callmejay

callmejay — Thu, 20 May 2004 07:56:03 -0800

The exterior appears to this viewer as anxiety-inducing.

By: robocop is bleeding

robocop is bleeding — Thu, 20 May 2004 08:06:31 -0800

Er, where are the books? Of the 20 pictures in the slideshow, only two have books in them. One shows shelving beneath a massive skylight (gee, that won't fade covers or anything), the other shows some ancient books on the floor of the kid's room. If you hide the books (or even the computers) behind whoppers of architecture, folks will forget what a library is for. But I just got my MLS this weekend, so maybe I'm just bitter. But, would you rather sit and read in this library or in your local Borders?

By: Fupped Duck

Fupped Duck — Thu, 20 May 2004 08:09:51 -0800

Nice design. Kinda reminds me of the Le Centre Pompidou, turned inside out. But deluxe library spaces always strikes me as a collossal waste of cash. The height of form over funtion. The local library where I used to live is a prime example. Beautiful structure with atriums and fountains etc. But hardly any materials. Just another example of why librarians are out-of-control freaks.

By: roboto

roboto — Thu, 20 May 2004 08:13:28 -0800

Always a critic, theStranger lobs a spear with several barbs.

By: xmutex

xmutex — Thu, 20 May 2004 08:28:52 -0800

Of course the sad thing here is that in Seattle for the last year or so we've been closing libraries at random for periods of a week each and not paying librarians but here we've spent-- I don't know-- a lot of money for a brand new library. I don't get it, but then again nothing King County does makes any sense. And the Mariners suck, too.

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Thu, 20 May 2004 08:29:05 -0800

"Print is dead."-Egon

By: silusGROK

silusGROK — Thu, 20 May 2004 08:30:51 -0800

Damn that's ugly.

By: falconred

falconred — Thu, 20 May 2004 08:40:36 -0800

It's not actually open yet so us Seattle folks can neither confirm nor deny that there are any book inside.

By: evilcupcakes

evilcupcakes — Thu, 20 May 2004 08:52:47 -0800

anybody from seattle to confirm or deny this? Unfortunately, it doesn't open until Sunday. The exterior appears to this viewer as anxiety-inducing It's actually surprisingly pretty. I despise this kind of architecture, but having seen it in person I vote this building is kinda cool. I mean hell, could it be any uglier than the EMP building? (which many locals have described as a piece of chewed gum barfed up.)

By: ColdChef

ColdChef — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:01:14 -0800

That whole red reception area looks slippery.

By: carter

carter — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:04:38 -0800

I'm fascinated, and I know what I'm doing the next time I'm in Seattle ...

By: y2karl

y2karl — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:05:38 -0800

The exterior appears to this viewer as anxiety-inducing. It fairly looms over one when biking down Fourth Avenue--not unlike the wineglass stemmed base of the Rainier Tower, around which the owners built a shopping center when they realized how many of the public would find it very alarming to stand beneath or near it on an open plaza. There is this local journalistic obsession about Seattle being considered a world class city--a collective character flaw not commonly found in actual world class cities, mind you--so you can imagine the local hype about the library. I still can see why people are excited by this, and for a fact, they didn't tear anything down cool to put it up. My favorite unbuilt architectural addition to the local landscape was Clas Oldenburg's suggestion back in the 70's that the Kingdome be turned into a giant hamburger with a pickle on top. We could have gone world class Googie and postmodern right there.

By: lobakgo

lobakgo — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:09:20 -0800

I think the new library is the gustiest thing this city has done in the 13 yrs. I've lived here. Finally someone had the balls to do something interesting. This is from SPL's site. BOOKS AND MATERIALS The new Central Library will have a capacity for more than 1.45 million books and materials (compared to 900,000 in the old building). TECHNOLOGY The new Central Library will feature more than 400 public computers. The old building had 75. And something that their fact sheet doesn't say. In the old building, the people in the cataloging, processing, etc. departments had to use the cardboard boxes their computers and printers came in as furniture for that very equipment. For patrons, the old building was a warren-like hovel with little room to sit. Plus some scary-ass dead ends where I ran into some creepy activity a few times. xmutex--not sure if this is what you meant, but Seattle Public Lib. is separate from King Co. Library Sys. To those of you with issues with your library sytems, I'd urge you to look at the director of the system. They are the ones who make the decisions and set policies, not the librarians. There was an interesting interview on our NPR station with the author of a book on the history of the Seattle Lib. I couldn't get the RealAudio to work, but maybe you can. Here's the book.

By: corpse

corpse — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:31:21 -0800

This is going to look horribly dated in a few years, if not now.

By: Hildago

Hildago — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:33:59 -0800

I'm in the camp of people who don't like it much. I've always been of the "cathedral of learning" persuasion, so I like my libraries gothic, somber, and stone. It also seems like a colossal waste of space to have a gigantic atrium. Sure, they put a million and a half books in there, but they could have fit more in if they hadn't wanted to get all fancy. I keep trying to imagine what Borges would say if you showed it to him. I think he would say, "what, I'm blind you eediot, I can see nothing!" (Borges in my mind sounds a lot of like Ren, I guess.)

By: LeLiLo

LeLiLo — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:42:46 -0800

I was just reading about this in The New Yorker yesterday, and it made me want to return to Seattle (where I regularly visited four or five of the city's libraries 20 years ago). The photo (apparently not online) was spectacular; the reviewer was very impressed. I think he would say, "what, I'm blind you eediot, I can see nothing!" "Hi, I'm Borges, I'll be here all week. . . ." I think he would really say, "Nice, but nothing will ever be as grand as my library."

By: lobakgo

lobakgo — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:47:45 -0800

Hildago--I think the weather here is gothic and somber enough most of the time without the buildings being that way too. The idea of a Seattle building that lets in light and lets you look out at the the city and sky(I don't know if you can see the Sound from the building) is a nice change.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Thu, 20 May 2004 09:58:08 -0800

One shows shelving beneath a massive skylight (gee, that won't fade covers or anything) According to the article the windows are reflective during the day and transparent at night.

By: tomplus2

tomplus2 — Thu, 20 May 2004 11:03:09 -0800

This is going to look horribly dated in a few years, if not now. You're right, Corpse, who needs that garbage, when we could have had a timeless library building like this one? Bah, who needs architecture and the arts.

By: signal

signal — Thu, 20 May 2004 12:30:17 -0800

Gorgeous. Long live king Rem. Koolhaas, obviously, not Stimpy.

By: Dreama

Dreama — Thu, 20 May 2004 13:56:52 -0800

The idea of a Seattle building that lets in light and lets you look out at the the city and sky(I don't know if you can see the Sound from the building) is a nice change. I'm sure it is, but the angles on this building... I look at it and all I can think is "You'll put your eye out, you'll put your eye out!" Couldn't it have been softer and sleeker and more naturally-shaped to go along with the lovely aesthetic idea of letting in light and giving a view of city and sky? Are curves passé? This reminds of the LRDC at the University of Pittsburgh, and not in a good way.

By: Faze

Faze — Thu, 20 May 2004 14:00:06 -0800

Who needs that garbage, when we could have had a timeless library building like this one? Actually, tomplus2, that little Samoan library in the photo you link to looks like a library you could kind of love. I happen to live in another city with a brand new, grandiose, post-modernistic main library, and it happens to bite the big one. I would like the Rem Koolhaas building for almost anything but a library. It's complete disdain for the intimacy of the act of reading and searching through the stacks, and the one-on-one interaction with books is nihilistic and anti-literate.

By: specialk420

specialk420 — Thu, 20 May 2004 14:06:10 -0800

as much as i like the spirit of what rem was thinking... its seems very cold and uninviting - kind of horrible actually - something softer that acknowledged the pacific northwest and the beautiful surroundings and geography of seattle - i think would be much nicer. at least in my opinion... something tells me william mcdonough would have produced something much less techy and more user friendly

By: humbe

humbe — Thu, 20 May 2004 14:29:49 -0800

I drove past the library the other day, but haven't been inside yet. I like that it lets in so much light - it really is dark around here especially in winter when it's dark by 4pm - that is if you ever see the sun through the clouds. Luckily during summer we have sunlight until ~9:30pm. As for the EMP, I was disgusted by the EMP design when it went up, but this library I like. Although the EMP's amazing interior makes up for the outside technicolor-vomit motif.

By: gluechunk

gluechunk — Thu, 20 May 2004 16:35:15 -0800

in Seattle for the last year or so we've been closing libraries at random for periods of a week each and not paying librarians but here we've spent-- I don't know-- a lot of money for a brand new library. I don't get it If you don't get it then maybe use the library to find out an answer? They are not closing libraries "at random" - all of that has been planned out. Some of the branches have been temporarily closed for upgrade purposes. And, as you stated, the entire SPL system has been closed for a week several times in the past year to save money. From here:

"Seattle voters overwhelmingly approved the $196.4 million 'Libraries for All' bond measure to upgrade The Seattle Public Library with new facilities, technology, and books. The bond money, which can be used only for construction of libraries, is funding a new central library and new and improved branches.

That bond money can't be used to pay for things like employee salaries. And that's why there have been several week-long closures in the past year even though a costly new library is going up."

By: litlnemo

litlnemo — Thu, 20 May 2004 17:44:29 -0800

Aw, gluechunk beat me to it. Yes, we approved the bond measure when times were flush, and now that they aren't, that money is still there, but restricted to building/remodeling libraries. They can't use it to fill in budget holes. I am excited about the new library but reserve judgement until I see it in use.

By: muppetboy

muppetboy — Thu, 20 May 2004 20:35:46 -0800

wonderful. but they'll have to close it due to budget shortfalls. after all, we gave all the money to a bunch of rich guys.