Good evening, everyone:

I wondered what might happen if I mashed up recent note topics, specifically about libraries and about architecture. Voila : next-generation library designs. Not sure of my purpose here – just thinking about what happens when you put an ancient tradition in a new bottle.

• Let ’s start with what is believed to be the world ’s oldest continuously operating library: the Al-Qarawiyyin Library at the University of al-Qarawiyyin, in Fez, Morocco, founded in 859. This sort of violates my premise: an ancient tradition in an ancient bottle. But it ’s a fun place to observe the intersection of culture and architecture:

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• Into the twentieth century for a mega-library the Biblioteca Vasconcelos in Mexico City – designed by Mexican architect Alberto Kalach – whose interior with its suspended bookshelves reads, so to speak, like something out of the Matrix :

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• Closer to home is the Seattle Public Library, with its unique zigzag shape and innovative use of glass; designed in 2004 by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas:

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• The Tianjin Binhai Library, China is anchored by its spherical auditorium and undulating bookshelves, designed by the Dutch-based architectural firm MVRDV  

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• The Library of Birmingham, UK could be confused as the love child of Slinky

• and Rock a Stack

• – designed by the Dutch architectural firm Mecanoo (so, what ’s with all these Dutch library designers?):

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• Cheating a bit on the next one: the proposed (but not built) Chicago library at 400 State Street, by Jeannie Gang/Studio Gang:

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• Probably overdue for a Scandinavian entry: the Oslo Public Library, designed by Atelier Oslo:

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• The Library and Learning Center in Vienna is instantly recognizable as a Zaha Hadid:

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• An entry that demonstrates that old wine bottles can be spiffed up: the National Library of France – the Richelieu site – opened in 1692 and whose renovation over the last decade was designed by Bruno Gaudin and Virginie Brégal:

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• And a final entry that ’s not exactly a library, but pretty darn close: the Aboriginal Art and Cultures Centre in South Australia, by our very own Diller, Scofidio & Renfro – their description of the project is a good summation of our tour: “a place to remember ourselves, to learn the truth-telling of our past, and to re-imagine ourselves together ”:

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Gone are the days when libraries were hermetic temples of silent contemplation. These designs suggest that they can be boldly designed, playful, magnets for curiosity, and places of community memory and aspiration.

Rip

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