西雅图公共图书馆丨美国西雅图丨OMA,REX的雷姆·库哈斯和乔舒亚·普林斯 拉莫斯

Seattle Public Library

Hey everyone!

I am currently in Seattle, Washington for my brother’s graduation, happened to find an interesting building, and thought I’d share some pictures as well as my thoughts on the building.  It is the Seattle Public Library located in downtown Seattle.  The building was designed by Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus of OMA/REX and finished construction in 2004.

From the street it obviously stands out as an interesting form in a sea of large skyscrapers.  The triangulated form on the façade starts to cantilever over the street as well.  You get a good sense of the structure from the outside with the steel structure with glass.  The inside is pretty interesting as well because there are 10 floors mostly left open, or filled with low level bookshelves or desks.  What first stuck me about this building was how quiet it was.  Yes, it is a library, but there are 10 floors connected by a large vertical atrium space, with each floor almost appearing to be one singular space with shelves and desk placed within.  There was very little preventing sound from traveling from one space to the next.  The silence I was hearing upon entering was the silence echoing through the entire 10-story building spanning an entire block.

Another interesting space I found was floor completely painted a blood red color.  The walls, floors and ceilings were all the same glossy red.  This seemed to elevate these relatively simple spaces into a somewhat disorienting special experience.  My depth perception was a bit thrown off.

The big question that this building brought up for me was the connection of the performance of a building to its design.  After exploring the building for a while I felt as though nothing of the building was designed specifically for its library program.  Each floor is basically a large singular space filled with objects typically used in libraries.  Could this building work as office spaces?  A school? A gallery space? I could really appreciate many other aspects of the building, but I couldn’t help but think the shelves were placed in the building haphazardly.  Anyways, hope everyone is having a great summer!

Matt Ho