"To bring together the records of the past and to house them in buildings where they will be preserved for the use of men and women in the future, a Nation must believe in three things. It must believe in the past. It must believe in the future. It must, above all, believe in the capacity of its own people so to learn from the past that they can gain in judgement in creating their own future." - Franklin Roosevelt At the dedication of his library on June 30, 1941 Earlier this month it was announced the President Barack Obama's Presidential...
Calgary’s New Public Library will be one for the ages
The latest entry in the elite coolest libraries on the planet club comes from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The competition-winning design from Snøhetta and DIALOG rings in the new while melding into the surrounding communities. The new design will realize the city’s vision for a technologically advanced public space for innovation, research and collaboration while embracing the city’s diverse urban culture and unique climate. Upon entering the library, visitors encounter a lobby awash with natural light. Your eye is drawn up through the sky lit atrium where clear visibility of the library’s public program and circulation along the atrium’s perimeter serve as a wayfinding...
China Cool: The Dalian Public Library
From the facade pictured above to the image below it's not much of a leap to say this library is one of the coolest looking ones out there.It was the winning design in the Dalian Library Design Competition and it comes courtesy of 10 Design who say of the project:The library is intended to be a transformative environment that pulls visitors into a unique landscape. The building weaves into the ground creating a series of courtyards and topographic undulations- rooting itself, and then sweeping up into the air forming a bold urban landmark. The shifting of the mass creates spaces ranging from the intimate...
London Library Lightens Up
The London Library, 14 St. James Square.(Image Courtesy Of The London Library Website.)Remember the hedge maze in Stanley Kubrick's film The Shining? Acres of impenetrable green walls, artfully arranged to bedevil intrepid explorers determined to find the calm, cool center of a secret, secluded space. Each new corner promises one more step towards the goal, but more often that not results in yet another dead end. But even those dead ends have a certain beauty. Each is a quiet oasis among the leaves, often with a marble bench on which to rest and reflect before continuing the journey to the...
New Swiss Library Will Run Like Clockwork
A Bird's Eye View Of The Rolex Learning Center.(All Images Courtesy Of SANAA.)Viewed from above it looks like a flat, wavy rectangle full of randomly placed holes-- and it's Swiss. A cheesy description, perhaps, but one that fits a glorious modernist library which opened on February 22, 2010 in the city of Lausanne. The Japanese architectural firm known as SANAA has created a single-story, slice-like structure so sublimely constructed it seems to float above the ground.Lausanne's Floating Library.The Rolex Learning Center for the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) is a single fluid space that undulates like free-flowing waves over...