In his blog today, columnist James Lileks talks about his first visit to the new Minneapolis Central Library building. (Scroll about 55% of the way down the page to get to the library part.)
Great comment below a photo of the children’s wing: “Because nothing says lazy hours spent reading in a warm cozy library like a wall of concrete.” Looking at that picture almost makes me want to bang my head repeatedly against that wall.
Lileks
Lileks is a great writer and always entertaining.
Bad design
A concrete wall like that would certainly not attract young readers, or any reader for that matter. I wonder who designed the building?
Re:Bad design
Do they actually involve librarians/library staff in design issues when constructing a new building? One has to wonder.
As for that concrete wall–if they had to have it, why not paint a bright, colourful mural or set of pictures on it??? They must have local artists they could hire to do that. Of course, it could be worse: it could all be painted mint/hospital green like my library is.
I remember when we (the staff) got a look at the initial plans/blue prints for our current school and were asked for input. I mentioned that the librarian’s office kind of needed to have windows so if one were in the office, one could actually SEE into the library. *sigh* I did get windows. And horrible green walls. The principal had told the architect to use whatever colours she wanted in the kids’ bathrooms. She chose the same pinky/peachy colour for the girls AND boys bathrooms. They changed the boys to a turquoisey green colour. Little kids need cues, including colours (cus the primaries aren’t gonna know what “boys” or “girls” on the wall means).The same architect built the school my best friend works at and SHE has a triangular office. The architect apparently disliked 90deg. angles.
s/