NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Seattle Central Library

The Seattle Central Library is the flagship library of the Seattle Public Library system. The 11-story glass and steel building in downtown Seattle, Washington was opened to the public on Sunday, May 23, 2004. Rem Koolhaas was the principal architect. The 362,987 square foot (34,000 m²) public library can hold about 1.45 million books and other materials, features underground public parking for 143 vehicles, and includes over 400 computers open to the public. Over 2 million individuals visited the new library in its first year. It is the third Seattle Central Library building to be located on the same site at 1000 Fourth Avenue, the block bounded by Fourth and Fifth Avenues and Madison and Spring Streets. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1536x2048, 2307 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Seattle Central Library Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1536x2048, 2307 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Seattle Central Library Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Interior of new Central Branch of the Seattle Public Library, 2004 The Seattle Public Library is the public library system serving Seattle, Washington, USA. It was officially established by the city in 1890, though there had been a library association active in Seattle since 1868. ... Glass can be made transparent and flat, or into other shapes and colors as shown in this sphere from the Verrerie of Brehat in Brittany. ... The old Steel cable of a colliery winding tower Steel is sometimes described as a sea of electrons. ... For other uses, see Building (disambiguation). ... Downtown Seattle, from top of Space Needle (looking south) Map of downtown Seattle Downtown is a neighborhood in Seattle, Washington. ... May 23 is the 143rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (144th in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Seattle Central Library, designed by OMA Rem Koolhaas (born November 17, 1944 in Rotterdam, Netherlands) is a Dutch architect, former journalist and screenwriter who studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. ... Architect at his drawing board, 1893 An architect is a person involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a buildings construction. ... Librarians and patrons in a typical larger urban public library. ... Walk of Ideas (Germany) - built in 2006 to commemorate Johannes Gutenbergs invention, circa 1445, of printing with movable type. ... Underground parking garage at the University of Minnesota. ...

Just 185 feet (56 meters) high, the Seattle Central Library is remarkable for its architecture rather than its height. (To compare, the Columbia Center, Seattle's tallest building, is 937 feet (285 m), and the iconic Space Needle is 605 feet (184 m) tall.) The library has a unique, striking appearance, consisting of several discrete "floating platforms" seemingly wrapped in a large steel net around glass skin. To help compare different orders of magnitude this page lists lengths between 10 m and 100 m. ... The Columbia Center (formerly the Bank of America Tower and the Columbia Seafirst Center) is the tallest skyscraper in the downtown Seattle skyline. ... Space Needle from Downtown Seattle. ...

Architectural tours of the building began on June 5, 2006. June 5 is the 156th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (157th in leap years), with 209 days remaining. ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

History

There has been a library located in downtown Seattle as far back as 1891, however the library did not have its own dedicated facilities and it was frequently on the move from building to building. The Central Library Carnegie, the first permanent library, located in its own dedicated building at Fourth Avenue and Madison Street, opened in 1906 with a Beaux-Arts design by Peter J. Weber. Andrew Carnegie, whose patronage of libraries later included five others in Seattle, donated $200,000 for the construction of the new library. That library, at 55,000 square feet, with an extension built in 1946, eventually became too small and cramped for a city population that, by the time the library was replaced, had roughly doubled since the library's first opening. Andrew Carnegie (November 25, 1835 â€“ August 11, 1919) was a Scottish-American businessman, a major philanthropist, and the founder of the Carnegie Steel Company which later became U.S. Steel. ...

A second library, at five stories and 206,000 square feet, was built at the site of the old Carnegie library in 1960. The new building featured an international-style architecture and an expanded interior, with features such as drive-thru service to offset the lack of available parking. A remodeling finished in 1972 gave the public access to the fourth story, dedicated to the arts and sound recordings. By the late 1990s, the library became too cramped again and two-thirds of its materials were held in storage areas inaccessible to patrons. Renewed consciousness of regional earthquake dangers drew concern from public officials about the seismic risks inherent to the building's design.^[1]

Planning the new library

Funding for the new Seattle Central Library building, as well as other construction projects throughout the library system, was provided by a $196.4 million bond measure, called "Libraries for All," approved by Seattle voters on November 3, 1998. The project also received a $20 million donation from Bill Gates, of Microsoft. Seattle Public Library Interior (Picture taken by me) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Seattle Public Library Interior (Picture taken by me) File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... In the United States, a municipal bond or muni is a bond issued by a state, city or other local government, or their agencies. ... November 3 is the 307th day of the year (308th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 58 days remaining. ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... This article is about the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation. ... Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ...

Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Ramus of the Dutch firm Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA), working in conjunction with the Seattle firm LMN Architects, served as the building's principal architects. Ramus served as the partner in charge. Ironically, OMA was not one of the firms invited to compete for the project. Ramus, formerly a Seattle resident, found out from his mother one day in advance that the library board was inviting interested firms to attend a mandatory public meeting. He attended, flying in from the Netherlands, and OMA ended up winning the project. Seattle Central Library, designed by OMA Rem Koolhaas (born November 17, 1944 in Rotterdam, Netherlands) is a Dutch architect, former journalist and screenwriter who studied architecture at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. ... The Office for Metropolitan Architecture, in short OMA, is the architecture firm of Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas. ... Architect at his drawing board, 1893 An architect is a person involved in the planning, designing and oversight of a buildings construction. ...

Deborah Jacobs, Chief Librarian in the Seattle Public Library system, spearheaded the project from the library's perspective and served as the primary client voice, while Betty Jane Narver served as president of the Library Board. Interior of new Central Branch of the Seattle Public Library, 2004 The Seattle Public Library is the public library system serving Seattle, Washington, USA. It was officially established by the city in 1890, though there had been a library association active in Seattle since 1868. ...

Design

The architects conceived the new Central Library building as a celebration of books, deciding after some research that despite the arrival of the 21st century and the "digital age," people still respond to books printed on paper. The architects also worked to make the library inviting to the public, rather than stuffy, which they discovered was the popular perception of libraries as a whole. Seattle Public Library File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Seattle Public Library File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Walk of Ideas (Germany) - built in 2006 to commemorate Johannes Gutenbergs invention, circa 1445, of printing with movable type. ... The 21st century is the present century of the Gregorian calendar. ... Piece of A4 paper Paper is a thin material produced by the amalgamation of plant fibres, which are subsequently held together without extra binder, largely by hydrogen bonds and to a large degree by fiber entanglement. ...

Although the library is an unusual shape from the outside, the architects' philosophy was to let the building's required functions dictate what it should look like, rather than imposing a structure making the functions conform to that.

For example, a major section of the building is the "Books Spiral," (designed to display the library's nonfiction collection without breaking up the Dewey Decimal System classification onto different floors or sections). The collection spirals up through four stories on a continuous series of shelves. This allows patrons to peruse the entire collection without using stairs or traveling to a different part of the building. In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which turns around some central point or axis, getting progressively closer to or farther from it, depending on which way you follow the curve. ... The Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC, also called the Dewey Decimal System) is a system of library classification developed by Melvil Dewey (1851–1931) in 1876, and since greatly modified and expanded in the course of the twenty-two major revisions which have occurred up until 2004. ...

Other internal features include; the Microsoft Auditorium on the ground floor, the "Living Room" on the third floor (designed as a space for patrons to read), the Charles Simonyi Mixing Chamber (a version of a reference desk that provides interdisciplinary staff help for patrons who want to have questions answered or do research), and the Betty Jane Narver Reading Room on level 10 (with views of Elliott Bay). Microsoft Corporation, (NASDAQ: MSFT, HKSE: 4338) is a multinational computer technology corporation with global annual revenue of US$44. ... Charles Simonyi (Hungarian: Simonyi KÃ¡roly) is a computer software developer, who, as head of Microsofts application software group, oversaw the creation of Microsofts flagship office applications. ... The reference desk or information desk of a library is a public service desk where professional librarians offer help to library users. ... Elliott Bay and the Seattle waterfront, looking north from the Pacific Coast Co. ...

New functions include automatic book sorting and conveyance, self-checkout for patrons, pervasive wireless communications among the library staff, and over 400 public computer terminals. A Lego RCX Computer is an example of an embedded computer used to control mechanical devices. ...

Response

Most architecture critics love the library although the opinion of the general public has been mixed, most like the new library but are less fond of its unusual design. Paul Goldberger, writing in The New Yorker, declared the Seattle Central Library "the most important new library to be built in a generation, and the most exhilarating."^[2] The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Washington awarded the Library its Platinum Award for innovation and engineering in its "structural solutions". The New Yorker is an American magazine that publishes reportage, criticism, essays, cartoons, poetry, and fiction. ...

In the library's first year, 2.3 million individuals came to visit the library, roughly 30% were out-of-town. The library was also found to have generated $16 million in new economic activity for its surrounding area.^[3]

Additional images

Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (1536x2048, 2145 KB) Licensing I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 1293 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Seattle Central Library Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 510 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Seattle Central Library Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1536x2048, 1061 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Seattle Central Library Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 2064 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Seattle Central Library Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (2048x1536, 2182 KB) File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed): Seattle Central Library Metadata This file contains additional information, probably added from the digital camera or scanner used... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high-resolution version (1024x768, 100 KB) I, the creator of this work, hereby grant the permission to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1. ... Image File history File links Download high-resolution version (1024x772, 451 KB) Seattle Central Library at night. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Downtown_Seattle_from_parking_garage. ...

References

March 13 is the 72nd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (73rd in leap years). ... 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year of the Ocean. ... May 26 is the 146th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (147th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (138th in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 25 is the 145th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (146th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... August 15 is the 227th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (228th in leap years), with 138 days remaining. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... May 25 is the 145th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (146th in leap years). ... 2006 (MMVI) is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

Categories: Libraries in Washington | Public libraries in the United States | Seattle landmarks | Buildings and structures in Seattle | Rem Koolhaas buildings Image File history File links Commons-logo. ... Wikimedia Commons logo by Reid Beels The Wikimedia Commons (also called Commons or Wikicommons) is a repository of free content images, sound and other multimedia files. ... This article does not cite its references or sources. ... May 17 is the 137th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (138th in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Herbert Muschamp is a writer for the New York Times who, in 2004, stepped down as the newspapers architecture critic. ... May 16 is the 136th day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (137th in leap years). ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... PDF is an abbreviation with several meanings: Portable Document Format Post-doctoral fellowship Probability density function There also is an electronic design automation company named PDF Solutions. ... Map of Earth showing lines of latitude (horizontally) and longitude (vertically), Eckert VI projection; large version (pdf, 1. ...

Contents

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