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The West End library project is certainly attractive, and the layout of the library itself represents a massive improvement over the cramped, bland box-like space of the current library. It is sad, however, that from the street, the building will be completely subsumed under the private housing stacked above it. There was a time when people believed that public buildings, even small branch libraries, could and should act as civic monuments. The belief entailed that they should set themselves apart from the rest of the urban fabric, announcing themseles as community gathering spaces. Whether Enrico Norten means it, his project can be taken as a metaphor for the complete encroachment of the private over the public. The firehouse project actually does a much better job of articulating each of its various parts, while integrating them into a cohesive whole through scale and proportion. It would be nice if the library was able to announce itself as well as the firehouse. But what am I talking about? Valorizing public, communal spaces? Back to New Urbanism and Capitalist re-education camp for me. Mixed-use, mixed-use. The city must consist of nothing but privately funded mixed-use.

Incidentally, architecture has nothing to do with the congregation of homeless people at libraries. It has everything to do with the lack of any other sort of indoor public space or public restrooms in this city. Mies' MLK library, whose ground floor is as open and bustling as Enrique Norten hopes his will be, is just as overrun by homeless people, in part because the homeless shelter bus (deliberately) stops right in front of it. There's a great kulturkritik to be done on homeless men seated in Barcelona chairs.

by wdcab on May 4, 2011 5:06 pm • link • report