Seattle Central Library

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Seattle Central Library Exterior, as seen from 5th Ave.

The Seattle Central Library is the flagship library of the Seattle Public Library system. The 11-story glass and steel building in downtown Seattle, Washington was opened to the public on Sunday, May 23, 2004. Rem Koolhaas was the principal architect. The 362,987 square foot (34,000 m²) public library can hold about 1.45 million books and other materials, features underground public parking for 143 vehicles, and includes over 400 computers open to the public. Over 2 million individuals visited the new library in its first year. It is the third Seattle Central Library building to be located on the same site at 1000 Fourth Avenue, the block bounded by Fourth and Fifth Avenues and Madison and Spring Streets.

Just 185 feet (56 meters) high, the Seattle Central Library is remarkable for its architecture rather than its height. (To compare, the Columbia Center, Seattle's tallest building, is 937 feet (285 m), and the iconic Space Needle is 605 feet (184 m) tall.) The library has a unique, striking appearance, consisting of several discrete "floating platforms" seemingly wrapped in a large steel net around glass skin.

Architectural tours of the building began on June 5, 2006.

1 History
2 Planning the new library
3 Design
4 Response
5 Additional images
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

There has been a library located in downtown Seattle as far back as 1891, however the library did not have its own dedicated facilities and it was frequently on the move from building to building. The Central Library Carnegie, the first permanent library, located in its own dedicated building at Fourth Avenue and Madison Street, opened in 1906 with a Beaux-Arts design by Peter J. Weber. Andrew Carnegie, whose patronage of libraries later included five others in Seattle, donated $200,000 for the construction of the new library. That library, at 55,000 square feet, with an extension built in 1946, eventually became too small and cramped for a city population that, by the time the library was replaced, had roughly doubled since the library's first opening.

A second library, at five stories and 206,000 square feet, was built at the site of the old Carnegie library in 1960. The new building featured an international-style architecture and an expanded interior, with features such as drive-thru service to offset the lack of available parking. A remodeling finished in 1972 gave the public access to the fourth story, dedicated to the arts and sound recordings. By the late 1990s, the library became too cramped again and two-thirds of its materials were held in storage areas inaccessible to patrons. Renewed consciousness of regional earthquake dangers drew concern from public officials about the seismic risks inherent to the building's design.^[1]

[edit] Planning the new library

Seattle Central Library Interior

Funding for the new Seattle Central Library building, as well as other construction projects throughout the library system, was provided by a $196.4 million bond measure, called "Libraries for All," approved by Seattle voters on November 3, 1998. The project also received a $20 million donation from Bill Gates, of Microsoft.

Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Ramus of the Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), working in conjunction with the Seattle firm LMN Architects, served as the building's principal architects. Ramus served as the partner in charge. Ironically, OMA was not one of the firms invited to compete for the project. Ramus, formerly a Seattle resident, found out from his mother one day in advance that the library board was inviting interested firms to attend a mandatory public meeting. He attended, flying in from the Netherlands, and OMA ended up winning the project.

Deborah Jacobs, Chief Librarian in the Seattle Public Library system, spearheaded the project from the library's perspective and served as the primary client voice, while Betty Jane Narver served as president of the Library Board.

[edit] Design

Seattle Central Library Interior

The architects conceived the new Central Library building as a celebration of books, deciding after some research that despite the arrival of the 21st century and the "digital age," people still respond to books printed on paper. The architects also worked to make the library inviting to the public, rather than stuffy, which they discovered was the popular perception of libraries as a whole.

Although the library is an unusual shape from the outside, the architects' philosophy was to let the building's required functions dictate what it should look like, rather than imposing a structure making the functions conform to that.

For example, a major section of the building is the "Books Spiral," (designed to display the library's nonfiction collection without breaking up the Dewey Decimal System classification onto different floors or sections). The collection spirals up through four stories on a continuous series of shelves. This allows patrons to peruse the entire collection without using stairs or traveling to a different part of the building.

Other internal features include; the Microsoft Auditorium on the ground floor, the "Living Room" on the third floor (designed as a space for patrons to read), the Charles Simonyi Mixing Chamber (a version of a reference desk that provides interdisciplinary staff help for patrons who want to have questions answered or do research), and the Betty Jane Narver Reading Room on level 10 (with views of Elliott Bay).

New functions include automatic book sorting and conveyance, self-checkout for patrons, pervasive wireless communications among the library staff, and over 400 public computer terminals.

[edit] Response

Most architecture critics love the library although the opinion of the general public has been mixed, most like the new library but are less fond of its unusual design. Paul Goldberger, writing in The New Yorker, declared the Seattle Central Library "the most important new library to be built in a generation, and the most exhilarating."^[2] The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Washington awarded the Library its Platinum Award for innovation and engineering in its "structural solutions".

In the library's first year, 2.3 million individuals came to visit the library, roughly 30% were out-of-town. The library was also found to have generated $16 million in new economic activity for its surrounding area.^[3]