Linnie Rawlinson has a piece on CNN titled Seattle Central Library: Creating the Perfect Public Space in which she urges people looking for ways to make “public spaces outstanding” to look to Seattle and how it pulled off and executed the Libraries For All campaign in which it raised over $200 million to create and remodel 27 library branches. The crown jewel of the campaign being the Rem Koolhaas-designed Central Library.
“Seattle is a city of readers, but our library buildings were getting tired…they were not working, not big enough, not functional for the change in the way information is being delivered.” City librarian Deborah L. Jacobs told CNN.
The Central Library “has been designed as a fully-functional, hard-working public space” while also being “equipped to act as a community hub.”
It is also very much a green building. It utilized local and recycled materials during the construction process and is energy efficient as “it maximizes daylight and uses automated lighting controls, while the wire mesh in the structure’s glass helps conduct heat out of the building, decreasing the need for air conditioning.”
But the main point here is not how well the building is designed or how many people visit or use their services. The reason it is a successful public space is that it is does not have a retail focus. Yes, the Friends of the Seattle Public Library have a great gift shop in there but this is a place one can go and not have to spend money or be inundated with the trappings of consumerism.
We also need to be careful with the term “public.” As I have mentioned in a previous post the library was also designed to keep part of the public out. The design of the Seattle Central Library might be the first library in history to have homelessness be a major factor in the collaborative process between the library and the architect. The library was built from the ground up with the homeless in mind.
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Thanks to Library Stuff for the lead