During my trip in Seattle I went to the new cascading Central Library designed by architect, and GSD professor, Rem Koolhaas. I missed out on the guided tours, but had a good hour walking up and down the spacious, colorful, and vibrant new construction. I don’t have much to say about the design, but the details were very nice… including the many sustainable elements within the design… and from what I know about Rem, the ideas are probably very theoretical though compelling. If you really want to read more about the design, dive over to Arcspace.
tons of pics after the jump.
The first 4 pics I found online, cause my cameras not fancy enough for pics that stunning.:
Okie…now my camera.
The entrance on the side.
The main floor where everyone is! It’s a rather breathtaking, calm space…feels like your in a recess of some sort…like being in a hive. but not necessarily in a building.
The skeletal structure of the building is really cool…though I can easily picture some troublesome seekers climbing all over the place.
These escalators were Bright…beaming poppy yellow with fluorescent lights. reminded me a bit of the RedBull office slide!
poppy yellow!!!
This is the view from the 5th floor I think, or the highest viewing point looking down the atrium… I got a bit dizzy after a few minutes. This is not a good place to drop my camera!
the basement area was filled with embossed text on the floor…I’m not sure why they were mirrored backwards..perhaps there was a mirror on the ceiling I didn’t notice.
nice typical design
The letters on the floor are backwards, probably as a reference to early printing using wood or lead type (which was backwards, but printed correctly)