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Contents Endorsements Book Synopsis Acknowledgments List of Image Credits
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Foreword by Kelvin Watson: The Future of Libraries Prologue by Michelle Jeffrey Delk: What is a Library Photo Series by Cida de Aragon: The Library as Public Space Part I. Introduction
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More than Access to Knowledge: On the Changing Shape of Tomorrow’s Urban Library Short List of 100+ Relevant Libraries
Part II. The Past and the Presence
The Evolution of the Library: from Stockholm - to Sendai - to Seattle - to Tianjin The Selected Case Studies and Statements from Library Designers
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Arata Isozaki & Associates, Tokyo
Oita Prefectural Library, Oita, Japan Kitakyushu Central Library, Fukuoka, Japan Toyonokuni Library for Cultural Resources, Japan Shenzhen Library and Cultural Center, Shenzhen, China
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Toyo Ito & Associates, Tokyo
Sendai Mediatheque, Sendai, Japan Tama Art University Library, Tokyo, Japan Gifu Media Cosmos, Gifu City, Japan
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Snøhetta, Oslo and New York
Bibliotheca Alexandrina, Alexandria, Egypt Temple University Charles Library, Philadelphia, US James Hunt Jr. Library at North Carolina State University, US Ryerson University Student Learning Centre, Toronto, Canada Calgary New Central Library, Calgary, Canada Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, North Dakota, US
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Mecanoo, Delft
Delft University of Technology Library, the Netherlands Birmingham Library, Birmingham, UK LocHal Library Tilburg, the Netherlands Tainan Public Library, Tainan, Taiwan Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library expansion, New York, US Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library expansion, Washington, D.C., US
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FJMT Studio, Sydney
Surry Hills Library and Neighbourhood Centre, Sydney, NSW, Australia Max Webber Library, Blacktown, Sydney, NSW, Australia Craigieburn Library, Hume City, North Melbourne, VIC, Australia Bartlett Memorial Library and Moe Service Centre, Gippsland, VIC, Australia Bankstown Library and Knowledge Centre, Bankstown, NSW, Australia Bunjil Place Cultural Centre, Narre Warren, City of Casey, VIC, Australia
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Will Bruder + Partners, Portland
Burton Barr Central Library, Phoenix, Arizona, US Billings Public Library, Billings, Montana, US Agave Library, Phoenix, Arizona, US
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Eun Young Yi, Cologne and Seoul
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Stuttgart City Library, Stuttgart, Germany Public Library Nanjing, China
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Kerry Hill Architects, Singapore and Perth
City of Perth Library and History Centre, Perth, Australia
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Max Dudler Architects, Berlin and Frankfurt
Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm Centre, Berlin, Germany
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Zaha Hadid Architects, London
Vienna University of Economics Library, Vienna, Austria Middle East Centre, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
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Diller Scofidio + Renfro, New York
Vagelos Education Center, Columbia University, New York, US
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Steven Holl Architects, New York
Queens Public Library, Hunters Point, New York, US
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Foster + Partners, London The House of Wisdom, Sharjah, UAE
Dominique Coulon & Associates, Strasbourg Media Library, Thionville, France
Antoine Predock, Albuquerque
Bibliotheca de Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico (unbuilt)
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Alberto Kalach & Taller de Arquitectura X, Mexico City
Bibliotheca Vasconcelos, Mexico City, Mexico Bibliotheca de Jalisco, Guadalajara, Mexico (unbuilt)
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MVRDV, Rotterdam
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Tianjin Binhai New Area Library, Tianjin, China
Part III. The Future: Reimaging the Library of Tomorrow
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Part IV. The Design Studio
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Looking Ahead: Collecting and Sorting Ideas for Tomorrow’s Sustainable Libraries The Library as a Hybrid Urban Place, Community Destination and Leader in Sustainability
Epilogue by Keith Webster: The Future of the Library and the Library of the Future
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Final Thought: Temporary Library and Micro-Library
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References Bibliography: Further Reading and Resources on Libraries
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List of Featured Architects About the Author Introducing a Selection of Former Ph.D. Students Index
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Book Synopsis The library is currently in the middle of a transformation, adapting to an unprecedented set of modern challenges, including digitisation, sustainability, equity and changes in research methods. To find out more, the author took a close look at recent libraries to learn what the future might hold, and spoke to those who are involved in shaping it. The book Reimagining the Library of the Future investigates the various models of public buildings and civic space through the lens of the library. It takes a critical look at the history, present transformation and future prospects of this significant building typology that has recently emerged as a redefined community place, social condenser and urban incubator for knowledge generation, storage and sharing. In particular, the library has evolved as a vibrant and vital member of community development and as a basis for outreach efforts aimed at underserved and diverse populations. This is an interdisciplinary study that challenges the conventional, traditional idea of the library as “a building to store books”, and aims to make a meaningful contribution to the discourse of this particular building type by speculating on the next-generation library. It uses a critical comparative case study approach to identify and discuss alternative and hybrid models of two types: the public and the academic library. The discussion touches on the future of civic space and public buildings in general, as well as how communal places are likely to continue to evolve and change. The book presents an exemplary collection of historically significant libraries and over 40 recent public and academic libraries from around the world, with over 250 images, rich in architectural delights. As the survey of precedents shows, the historical cases have informed the design of the recent libraries and the continuous development of the building typology over time. Well-designed libraries are now in abundance, and the wider view of this study includes mediatheques and learning centers. The selection of contemporary projects from the last 20 years focuses on libraries in Europe (in Germany, France, Italy, Austria, Netherlands, UK), the US, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Japan and China—countries where the design of libraries has been most comprehensively developed. Libraries belong to society. The library is a unique typology undergoing great transformation, and this well-overdue analysis examines how the typology has always been a testing ground of public interest and shared civic space—again evolving in very interesting directions today. Over the next decade, the library is likely to continue to further expand its role as a free educational resource for lifelong learning of all residents, with initiatives also targeting non-traditional library users. Libraries are dynamic and continually changing. Advocating the dissemination of knowledge while empowering the public, libraries celebrate ideas, curiosity and empathy. The historical function of libraries as storehouses, limited to collecting and storing manuscripts and books, has expanded: the library of the future is a significant public space ― a place for community building, meetings and frequently a catalyst for urban revitalisation; the next-generation library is likly to be a forum – a moderated place of knowledge and debate. This supports the urban ambition for the library to become a new civic centre and genre-bending hub for social development and community support.
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Will the future library resemble a densely vegetated garden? Libraries always exist in multidimesional relationships within their larger urban, cultural and societal context and the wider knowledge system they create. Libraries are more than engines of research and places for public engagement. Reimagining the Library of the Future explores the transformation of this established typology from the traditional format to a communal incubator of ideas and a place for new knowledge generation, exchange and sharing. New libraries are now re-emerging everywhere, and the book-based library is making a comeback. Its spaces often exude tranquillity. But the library of the future is a phenomenon that has yet to be defined in terms of its atmosphere, performance, role and architectural appearance. Therefore, the book explores the opportunities and challenges for new hybrid types of urban libraries and the transformation of civic urban space previously known as public. One of the key take-away messages of the study is that society will still need libraries in the future. Libraries are not dying, they are evolving, and they are important cornerstones of a healthy community: they give people the opportunity to find jobs, explore scientific research, experience new ideas and get lost in wonderful stories – while at the same time providing a sense of place for gathering. The author predicts that the library’s important role as a symbol of shared cultural and community values will remain. The subject of the future of libraries is of great relevance to many people. For example, there are more than 117,000 libraries throughout the US alone, employing over 160,000 librarians, but in many countries user numbers have been declining over the last 10 years. Written by an architecture professor with extensive research and professional background, and richly illustrated with relevant examples, this reference book will be useful for practitioners, students, bibliophiles, librarians and everybody who has an interest in the future of libraries. Book Highlights • The book presents a selection of historically significant as well as contemporary public and academic libraries, and identifies emerging trends relevant to the design of libraries. • Among the highlights of the book are the twelve statements by leading architects and library designers specifically written for this publication. • In general, there is currently a lack of systematic understanding of how public buildings and the collective civic spaces weave cities together through their interconnected spatial networks; thus, more research is necessary to better understand the civic character of the library of the future. • The popularity of the library will continue (despite the digitisation of books and manuscripts), and the role of the urban library of thetwenty-first century is more relevant than ever before: it has evolved as a vibrant and vital place of community development and outreach efforts aimed at underserved and diverse populations. It offers lifelong learning, training on career advancement and social services support, addressing the growing digital divide in our society. • Over recent years, new library spaces have become arenas for innovative concepts and utopian views of social place-making in the urban landscape. • Experts speculate that, by 2050, sharing knowledge might be the last remaining form of public activity. • The spotlight is now on the renewal of the urban fabric and its public space network, accommodating libraries in super-green adaptive-reuse projects, hence the question: what exactly will be the role of the library as a new type of public space and community building institution?
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Photo Series The Library as Public Space Photos by Cida de Aragon, 2021
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Mexico City
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San Diego
Commissioned photo series for this study: Cida de Aragon is a media artist and photographer. She researches and teaches analog and digital photography at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Cida holds a Master’s degree from Middlesex University (UK) and a Master’s degree from Goldsmiths’ College, University of London. The photo series shows aspects of libraries in Mexico City, Stuttgart, Alghero, Las Vegas and San Diego.
ORO Editions For more information, please visit: www.cidadearagon.com
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Boston Public Library, Bates Hall Reading Room, Boston, Massachusetts, US (Charles F. McKim), 1895 The Boston Public Library opened in 1854; it contains roughly 23 million items, making it the second-largest public library in the US. The library is known for its incredible courtyard, entrance atrium, and its quintessential library reading room: the Bates Hall Reading Room, which was completed in 1895. With its elegant emerald-green reading lamps and dramatic arched ceiling and windows, the Boston Public Library’s grand Bates Hall has been welcoming Bostonians in need of a place to work or study for more than a century.
New York City Public Library on Fifth Avenue, Rose Main Reading Room, New York City, US (Carrere & Hastings), 1897 Founded in 1895, the library opened in 1911: at this time, a grand library that was free to the public was still a fresh, almost radical notion. The New York Public Library (NYPL) has nearly 53 million items, and is the third largest library in the world. The incredible Beaux-Arts landmark was one of the largest marble structures in the US when it was built. Its historic Rose Main Reading Room was renovated in 2016; it stretches nearly two city blocks, measuring 90 m in length and 26 m in width (297 feet long by 87 feet wide), and has 42 long oak tables for users to sit in. The collection includes Columbus’s 1493 letter announcing his discovery of the New World.
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George Peabody Library, Baltimore, Maryland, US (Edmund G. Lind), 1878 This library interior is often regarded as one of the most beautiful libraries in the world. Completed in 1878, it was designed by Baltimore architect Edmund G. Lind in collaboration with the first Peabody provost, Nathaniel H. Morison, that described it as a “cathedral of books.” The visually stunning, monumental neo-Greco interior features an atrium that, over an alternating black and white slab marble floor, soars 19 metres (61 feet) high to a latticed skylight of frosted heavy glass, surrounded by five floors of ornamental cast-iron balconies. Today it is used as research library by the Johns Hopkins University.
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For me, Seattle Library is a building that is at the same time old-fashioned in terms of resurrecting the public realm, and contemporary in terms of addressing the key issue whether the book is still relevant. What was fascinating is that when we started looking at the programme, we divided it into only two activities –those programmatic components that we assumed would remain stable over time, and those where we assumed they would start to mutate and change their character fairly quickly.
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— Rem Koolhaas, OMA, 2005 103
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Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library renovation and expansion, Washington, D.C., US (Mecanoo), 2014–21 Working in collaboration with OTJ Architects, Mecanoo was responsible for renovating the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (MLKL) — a landmark building designed by Mies van der Rohe in 1970. The team transformed the main entrance and the two adjacent cores into focal points by making them more transparent and designing new spacious and daylit public stairwells. This creates a clear and welcoming entrance area, which makes the facility significantly more legible for visitors. The great hall, a centralised area designated for cultural performances and informal events, now forms the beating heart of the library. A central objective of the redesign was to highlight the library’s social gathering purpose and its strong presence as a social landmark in the city, while balancing the very different legacies of Mies van der Rohe and Dr. King. The remodelled library features a new café and rooftop garden.
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It was Jonah who, by surviving for seven days inside the whale, built in his mind a space where he could house such a creature. But the mind is always bigger inside than outside, and the space grew until it became a great vault; which Jonah was filling with his thoughts. He had thoughts of all kinds and he was organizing them according to different categories, he created a number system to catalog them and he assigned a color to each one to be able to recognize it. — Pedro Rosenblueth, 2015
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