Seattle Central Library

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 Seattle Carnegie Library, the first permanent library located in its own dedicated building at Fourth Avenue and Madison Street, opened on December 19, 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 {{convert|55000|sqft|m2}}, with an extension built in 1946, eventually became too small and cramped for the city's growing population by the 1950s; it had also sustained structural damage from the 1949 Olympia earthquake.{{cite web |last1=Becker |first1=Paula |title=Central Library, 1906-1957, The Seattle Public Library |url=https://www.historylink.org/File/9869 |website=HistoryLink |access-date=October 24, 2021 |date=July 1, 2011}} A temporary library was set up in the Electric Building on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Olive Way; originally built in 1909, the building was owned by Puget Sound Power and Light until December 1956, when the company sold the building to Frederick & Nelson and moved its offices to the Puget Power Building in Bellevue.{{cite news |title=F. & N. Expansion Centers Around Old Power Building |work=The Seattle Times |date=December 2, 1956 |page=41}}{{cite news |title=Friday to See Completion Of Library Move |work=The Seattle Times |date=March 20, 1957 |page=13}} The Carnegie library closed on March 22, 1957, with demolition commencing that July.{{cite news |title=Demolition Contract on Library Awarded |work=The Seattle Times |date=July 9, 1957 |page=11}}

A second library, at five stories and {{convert|206000|sqft|m2}}, was built at the site of the old Carnegie library and opened on March 26, 1960.{{cite web |last1=Wilma |first1=David |title=Central Library, 1960-2001, The Seattle Public Library |url=https://www.historylink.org/File/4157 |website=HistoryLink |access-date=October 24, 2021 |date=April 16, 2003}} The new building designed by architects Bindon and Wright, with Decker, Christenson, and Kitchin as associates, featured an international-style architecture and an expanded interior, with features such as drive-thru service to offset the lack of available parking. George Tsutakawa's "Fountain of Wisdom" on the Fifth Avenue side (relocated to Fourth Avenue in the current library) was the first of that artist's many sculptural fountains. 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.{{cite web |url=http://www.spl.org/lfa/capplan/libforall/centprop.html |title=Proposal for the Central Library, 1998 Libraries for All capital plan. |date=March 13, 1998 |access-date=May 26, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-date=2006-07-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060720090715/http://www.spl.org/lfa/capplan/libforall/centprop.html |publisher=Seattle Public Library}}Victor Steinbrueck, Seattle Cityscape, University of Washington Press, Seattle, 1962, p. 71.{{cite press release |title=Tsutakawa Fountain reinstallation begins at new Central Library on Monday, April 12, 2004 |date=2004-04-09 |publisher=Seattle Public Library |url=http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=about_news_detail&cid=1081560568406 |access-date=2007-11-07 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090219220936/http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=about_news_detail&cid=1081560568406 |archive-date=2009-02-19}}{{cite web | url=http://www.historylink.org/essays/output.cfm?file_id=1928 | title= Seattle Public Library's new central library building is dedicated in 1960 | author=HistoryLink Staff | date=2000-01-01 | publisher=HistoryLink |access-date = 2007-11-07}}

To make way for the current Seattle Central Library, which is the third library building to inhabit the city block between Fourth and Fifth Avenues, the second library was closed on June 8, 2001,{{cite news |last1=Kaiman |first1=Beth |title=Central Library doors will close this week |url=https://archive.seattletimes.com/archive/?date=20010606&slug=library06m |access-date=March 10, 2024 |work=The Seattle Times |date=June 6, 2001 |page=B1}} and demolished that November; a temporary library had opened on July 7 in rented spaced at the Washington State Convention and Trade Center.{{cite news |title=That chapter is over |url=https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=WORLDNEWS&req_dat=C12EB6BE1393489FA580F5880B8B058E&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews%252F0EFBC8EA21BB2DE5 |access-date=May 8, 2021 |work=The Seattle Times |date=November 10, 2001 |page=B4}}{{cite news |last1=Davis |first1=Jiquanda |title=Temporary library site will open tomorrow |url=https://infoweb.newsbank.com/apps/news/openurl?ctx_ver=z39.88-2004&rft_id=info%3Asid/infoweb.newsbank.com&svc_dat=WORLDNEWS&req_dat=C12EB6BE1393489FA580F5880B8B058E&rft_val_format=info%3Aofi/fmt%3Akev%3Amtx%3Actx&rft_dat=document_id%3Anews%252F0ED719F4227057A3 |access-date=May 8, 2021 |work=The Seattle Times |date=July 6, 2001 |page=B1}} 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.

Image:Seattle - Collins Block 01.jpg|The Collins Block at Second and James; the public library was one of its original 1894 tenants.

Image:Seattle Public Library - 1900.jpg|Henry Yesler's former mansion at Third and James was supposed to be a permanent home for the library, but burned January 2, 1901.

Image:Seattle - Carnegie Library 01.jpg|The Carnegie Library, on the same site as the current building, was Seattle's downtown library for just over a half-century.

Image:Seattle Public Library looking SE at 4th Ave entrance.tiff|The Bindon and Wright library, which replaced the Carnegie Library on the same site, stood for over 41 years.

File:Rem Koolhaas SCL.jpg inspecting a model of the building. Joshua Prince-Ramus is kneeling.]]

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Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-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. Bjarke Ingels designed the interior boxes for OMA.[http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/09/10/120910fa_fact_parker Ian Parker, "High Rise"], The New Yorker, 10 September 2012. Retrieved 8 October 2012. 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 flew in, and OMA ended up winning the project.{{cite web |url=https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/seattle-central-library-oma-most-exciting-new-building |title=Seattle Central Library by OMA. "The Most Exciting New Building" |author=Jose Juan Barba |date=April 23, 2018 |website=Metalocus |access-date=April 17, 2022}}{{cite web |url=https://www.designbuild-network.com/projects/seattle-library/ |title=Seattle Central Library in the USA, Designed by Reb Koolhaus |date=May 19, 2008 |website=Design Build Network |access-date=April 17, 2022}}

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.

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 11-story Central Library has a capacity for over 1.5 million books, in comparison to only 900,000 in the old library building.{{Cite web|url=https://lmnarchitects.com/project/seattle-central-library|title=LMN|website=Seattle Central Library|access-date=November 1, 2016}} 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.

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 and making the functions conform to that.

The first level, facing 4th Avenue, has a lobby, holds pick-up, and a children's center. It also includes the Microsoft Auditorium, which seats 275 people for events. An escalator connects the 4th Avenue lobby to the third level, which faces 5th Avenue and is named the Norcliffe Foundation Living Room. It includes a small cafe, a gift shop, and a teen center.{{cite news |date=January 17, 2023 |title=The Central Library Expands Hours, and 20-Plus Things to Do There |url=https://shelftalkblog.wordpress.com/2023/01/17/the-central-library-expands-hours-and-20-plus-things-to-do-there/ |work=Shelf Talk Blog |publisher=Seattle Public Library |accessdate=January 23, 2023}} The fourth level, named the "Red Floor", uses 13 shades of red paint on surfaces and includes four meeting rooms and two computer labs.{{cite news |date=July 18, 2022 |title=The Central Library's Iconic Red Floor Reopens To The Public |url=https://shelftalkblog.wordpress.com/2022/07/18/the-central-librarys-iconic-red-floor-reopens-to-the-public/ |work=Shelf Talk Blog |publisher=Seattle Public Library |accessdate=January 23, 2023}} The main computer lab is located on the fifth level, named the Charles Simonyi Mixing Chamber, with 338 computer stations and a reference desk.{{cite web |title=Take a tour of the Central Library |url=https://www.spl.org/hours-and-locations/central-library/central-library-highlights/central-library-tours |publisher=Seattle Public Library |accessdate=January 23, 2023}}

A major section of the building is the "Books Spiral", which is designed to display the library's nonfiction collection without breaking up the Dewey Decimal System classification onto different floors or sections. The collection occupies the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth stories on a continuous series of shelves with a maximum slope of 2 degrees. The eighth level also includes music practice rooms, while the ninth level has a genealogy collection and map room. The tenth level is divided between the Seattle Room, which contains local history collections, and the Betty Jane Narver Reading Room with 400 seats. It also includes the highest viewpoints in the building.

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.

Below the library is a 143-stall parking garage that is open for use by library patrons and other members of the public for a fee.{{cite web |title=Paid parking at the Central Library |url=https://www.spl.org/hours-and-locations/central-library/central-library-highlights/central-library-parking |publisher=Seattle Public Library |accessdate=March 19, 2023}}

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Use of the building is more than double the predicted volume.{{citation|title=A moment with ... Joshua Prince-Ramus/Architect|last=Marshall|first=John|newspaper=Seattle Post-Intelligencer|date=September 2008|url=http://www.seattlepi.com/ae/378814_moment12.html}} In the library's first year, 2.3 million people came to visit the library; roughly 30% were from outside Seattle. The library generated $16 million in new economic activity for its surrounding area in its first year.{{citation|last=Kenney|first=Brian|url=http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA633326.html|title=After Seattle|journal=Library Journal|date=August 15, 2005|access-date=2006-05-25|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060221215111/http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA633326.html|archive-date=February 21, 2006}}

The opinion of architectural critics and the general public has been mixed. 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."{{cite magazine |last=Goldberger |first=Paul |magazine=The New Yorker |title=High-Tech Bibliophilia |url=http://www.newyorker.com/critics/skyline/?040524crsk_skyline |date=May 17, 2004 |access-date=May 25, 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060611122300/https://www.newyorker.com/critics/skyline/?040524crsk_skyline |archive-date=Jun 11, 2006}} The American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC) of Washington awarded the Library its Platinum Award for innovation and engineering in its "structural solutions". The library also received a 2005 national AIA Honor Award for Architecture.{{citation|last=Smith|first=Andy|url=http://blog.aia.org/favorites/2007/02/108_seattle_public_library_200.html|title=America's Favorite Architecture: Seattle Public Library|publisher=American Institute of Architects|format=AIA blog|date=February 6, 2007|access-date=2013-02-17|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130926215552/http://blog.aia.org/favorites/2007/02/108_seattle_public_library_200.html |archive-date=2013-09-26 |url-status=dead }}

Lawrence Cheek, the architecture critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, revisited the building in 2007 and found it "confusing, impersonal, uncomfortable, oppressive" on the whole, with various features "decidedly unpleasant," "relentlessly monotonous," "badly designed and cheesily detailed," "profoundly dreary and depressing," and "cheaply finished or dysfunctional," concluding that his earlier praise for the building was a "mistake."{{cite web|last=Cheek |first=Lawrence |url=http://www.seattlepi.com/ae/309029_architecture27.html?source=mypi |title=On Architecture: How the new Central Library really stacks up |newspaper=Seattle Post-Intelligencer |date=2007-03-26 |access-date=2012-08-15}}

The library was roundly condemned by the Project for Public Spaces, which noted "if the library were a true 'community hub,' its most active areas would connect directly to the street, spinning off activity in every direction. That is where Koolhaas's library, sealed away from the sidewalks and streets around it, fails completely." It went on to note "critics have cast it as a masterpiece of public space design. As if blinded by the architect's knack for flash and publicity, they cannot locate, or perhaps refuse to acknowledge, the faults in his creation."{{citation|title=Mixing with the Kool Crowd: Have architecture critics forgotten how to judge public spaces?|last=Fried|first=Benjamin|journal=Making Places Newsletter|date=July 2004|url=http://www.pps.org/reference/mixing-with-the-kool-crowd/}}

The confusing layout of the library's structure was also addressed in a book by architect Ruth Conroy Dalton and cognitive scientist Christoph Hölscher, called Take One Building: Interdisciplinary Research Perspectives of the Seattle Central Library.{{Cite book|last1=Dalton |first1=Ruth Conroy |last2=Hölscher |first2=Christoph |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/1065322205|title=Take one building : interdisciplinary research perspectives of the Seattle Central Library|date=8 June 2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-138-61658-5|oclc=1065322205}} Researchers examined it as a model case for investigating the interplay between the building's complexity and individual differences in wayfinding ability.{{Cite journal|last1=Kuliga|first1=Saskia F.|last2=Nelligan|first2=Benjamin|last3=Dalton|first3=Ruth C.|last4=Marchette|first4=Steven|last5=Shelton|first5=Amy L.|last6=Carlson|first6=Laura|last7=Hölscher|first7=Christoph|date=2019-04-12|title=Exploring Individual Differences and Building Complexity in Wayfinding: The Case of the Seattle Central Library|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0013916519836149|journal=Environment and Behavior|volume=51|issue=5|pages=622–665|doi=10.1177/0013916519836149|bibcode=2019EnvBe..51..622K |s2cid=150719300 |issn=0013-9165}}

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{{reflist|33em |refs=

{{cite web |url=http://www.spl.org/locations/central-library/cen-about-the-central-library/cen-history |title=History of the Central Library |access-date=February 15, 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150219160646/http://www.spl.org/locations/central-library/cen-about-the-central-library/cen-history |archive-date=February 19, 2015}}

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{{commons category}}

• [https://www.spl.org/hours-and-locations/central-library Seattle Public Library Central Library home page]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060518143623/http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=about_history_history Brief History of The Seattle Public Library]
• Rawlinson, Linnie. [http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/08/02/seattle.library/ 'Creating the perfect public space: Seattle Central Library'], CNN, 2 August 2007. With image gallery.
• [http://old.seattletimes.com/news/local/library/ Seattle Times special section]
• Muschamp, H. (May 16, 2004). [https://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/16/arts/design/16MUSC.html The library that puts on fishnets and hits the disco]. The New York Times.
• The [https://web.archive.org/web/20060223092228/http://www.spl.org/pdfs/2004AnnualReport.pdf 2004 Annual Report] (PDF) of the library system includes many images of the library, brief biographies of the artists whose work was incorporated into the structure, etc.
• [http://lynnbecker.com/repeat/seattle/seattle.htm Review and overview by architecture critic Lynn Becker]
• [http://figure-ground.com/travel/image.php?spl Photos of exterior and interior of building] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928093710/http://figure-ground.com/travel/image.php?spl |date=2007-09-28 }}

{{Seattle Public Library}}

{{Downtown Seattle}}

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Category:Rem Koolhaas buildings

Category:Library buildings completed in 1906

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