Whacky Seattle Library

I went up to Seattle for the day yesterday to attend my pal Dave's housewarming. As I arrived in town early, I decided to make a visit to Seattle's new Central Library. Designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, the building certainly stands out in downtown Seattle, as if an alien spaceship had chosen that spot to land.

I parked in the basement garage and went up from there, up the series of escalators to the topmost public floor, the reading room. From there, I worked my way down the book spiral. This is probably my favorite part of the library*, it is logical and makes sense. The spiral is four stories high, but you don't need stairs- it is essentially a library on a big ramp. The books are arranged on the shelves in order as you work your way up.

The fourth floor contains all of the meeting rooms, and is very RED. It reminded me of the exhibit in the old OMSI where you could walk through the human heart. The rest of the public spaces in the library are grand. The materials are basic- concrete, metal, glass- but come in a variety of texture and form. Of course the whole thing is sheathed in a jewel-like glass curtain that zigs and zags every which way. There are views from practically everywhere in this building. This also brings a lot of natural light into the library. It would be very interesting to spend a day here just to see how the light changes throughout the day.

Upon reaching the lower levels, I headed outside to walk around the immediate neighborhood. The exterior is where the I believe the library fails to match the success of what is on the inside. The library makes good use of the sloping site, but the entrances are understated and fairly constrained. I don't think buildings should match their surroundings (that would make for bland neighborhoods) but they should at least recognize and respond to them. Nobody is going to claim that this building is a response to any of its neighbors. The face of the library to the passing pedestrian is only interesting because of the building design itself.

After my trip to the library, I made my way to Dave's Beacon Hill home. I met his roommate Bill, who was perfectly nice, but I don't really like caling other people Bill. I find it odd. I also met many other random people and got to catch up with a former boss of mine from Housing, which was good.

*I think one of the reasons I liked the book spiral is that I took an introductory architecture course my senior year at Oregon. The class was structured as a lecture, with a small project due every week. A group of teaching assistants would each take 4 or 5 students projects every week and choose one to be posted. Anyway, one of the assignments was to design a library for a specific site. My solution included a series of ramps between levels, which I recalled as I traveled the book spiral. I didn't get posted for that assignment (the ramps were too steep, for one thing) but I did win some other times. I was proud of this as most of the students in that class were actual architecture majors.

August 30, 2004 05:08 PM

Comments (1)

09/11: Trevor said:

I like the New Yorker's take on the library:

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/skyline/?040524crsk_skyline