Architects Redefining The Public Library

Architype finds inspiration in projects that somehow redefine our understanding of a certain typology...Grouped together by type, they provide a survey of innovation taking place at several different scales, promoted by both large and small firms. Presented here in the words and images of their own creative team:

Seattle: OMA/LMN - Joint Venture:

"The library represents...the last of the uncontested moral universes. Increasingly public space has been replaced by accommodations of quasi-public substance that while suggesting an open invite, actually make you pay. The library stands exposed as outdated and moralistic at the moment that it has become the last repository of the free and the public....Our ambition is to redefine the library as an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the book, but as an information store where all potent forms of media-new and old-are presented equally and legibly. In an age where information can be accessed anywhere, it is the simultaneity of all media and (more importantly) the curatorship of their contents that will make the library vital."

Winnipeg Centennial Library Addition,Winnipeg, Manitoba

Patkau Architects / LM Architectural Group:

"The addition to the library, which began in 2002 as the winning entry in an invited design competition, includes reorganization and expansion of the collections, reconfiguration of the circulation systems, and creation of new social spaces, as well as renovation of the existing library. Expanding the library into the park would have destroyed valuable public green space and required costly foundation reinforcement within the parking garage...The compact footprint of the addition maintains maximum park space, allowing the library to take advantage of its location, while the highly visible, interactive terraces, an interior topography at the scale of the park, generate a radically new identity for the library."