1. It can't be "green" - can it? I'm guessing the HVAC costs are high.

Posted by: ronin on November 20, 2006 09:53 AM

2. "Bauhaus" and "The Painted Word" are the only two books you ever need to read to understand much of current architecture, and 100% of modern art. "Bauhaus" also will (in a very succinct and entertaining way) explain why our current transportation mess is a mess, and why the bright boys really do hate you. Factory housing! Mass transit, it is all right there.

Posted by: Cliff on November 20, 2006 10:02 AM

3. His style seems to appeal to people like Hizzoner who have an edifice complex.

Posted by: Palouse on November 20, 2006 10:05 AM

4. Compared to Frank Gehry's atrocities, Rem Koolhaas' edifices are downright cozy. But this is more from the Postmodern Left/ Nihilist world view that brought us garbage like Jackson Pollack and today's violent rap music.

Art imitates life. When a culture's art denigrates into the large useless spaces of Rem Koolhaas, the angry anarchy of Jackson Pollack or the outright hedonism and violence of Hip-Hop music, you know it's a bad sign.

Posted by: Jeff B. on November 20, 2006 10:06 AM

5. comming from the left I'd word things a bit differently then you four folks do, but my conclusion is largely the same.

Posted by: me on November 20, 2006 10:26 AM

6. Why hate on the library? SPL's library construction and renovation project (still in progress) is the *only* on-time and on-budget civic project in the state.

Jeff's first sentence is right - it's not Gehry garbage. The central library is an amazingly functional building - much more so than any public or university library I've used.

Posted by: librarifan on November 20, 2006 10:43 AM

7. Here's a link to Living Machines a book by E. Michael Jones that I read a decade or so ago. I reccomend it as a good look inside the mind of the proponents and fans of this sort of crap.

http://www.amazon.com/Living-Machines-Bauhaus-Architecture-Ideology/dp/0898704642

Posted by: JDH on November 20, 2006 10:46 AM

8. I enjoy the downtown library, not only is it unique in appearance but it's a fun place to hang out, relax, read a book, and even photograph.

It looks a hell of a lot better than the EMP blob thingie downtown.

Posted by: Cato on November 20, 2006 10:49 AM

9. #6 - Glad someone said something positive. Thought maybe I was the only one that liked it. Not only is it nice looking from the outside, but unlike what others have implied, the space inside looks like it is incredibly efficient and effective use of space.

The EMP on the other hand... not my cup of tea. But then again, it's not as bad, in my opinion, as the hideious Bellevue Convention Center (the big pink windowless barn).

Posted by: Splinter on November 20, 2006 10:55 AM

10. I'll take the new library over many of the uninspired boxes we call buildings. I think architechture should be a little challenging. I also think that regardless of what you think of the exterior, the interior of the new library is wonderful.

Posted by: Eric on November 20, 2006 10:58 AM

11. The Library is great, just like the Pioneer Building or the Space Needle are for their times. Hopefully we'll all be looking back on it in 50 years and recalling what the beginning of the century was like. The intended use is as key as the aesthetics are, it's the first major library project built after the culture of the internet took hold. It's fun to pick on the optimism of the modernists, they overreached and almost birthed a postindustrial nightmare. Some really wild urban planning groundwork came from Le Corbusier. while Corbu was a great furniture and building designer, we are all lucky the French put reigns on his larger 'visions' and that they only really took hold minimally, in urban public housing projects. I'll hold him more responsible for the gross manifestations of modernism than the talented multi-faceted history of the Bauhaus. Similarly, Rem is a great paper architect, but don't let him get a hold of anything larger than a city block.

Posted by: ben on November 20, 2006 11:36 AM

12. The fact that Jim Miller atacks the library for being impractical says how little he know about that building. But more important, his implication that it is inappropriate for an elected government to spend money on aesthetics is naive and ridiculous. Would he ban paint on buildings? Trees?

Posted by: Bruce on November 20, 2006 12:10 PM

13. That damned building is a horror. There are way too many places where one has to stand or walk where I found myself standing over NOTHING. Or watching elevators zip up and down, vertigo-inducing worse than the Smith Tower, yet never stopping on the 5th floor. The spiral is a horror with a dearth of level surfaces and the slanted parts placed just far enough apart to make they consistently awkward to step on.

And would someone please explain the Edgar Allen Poe floor to me? That's the one that has red floors, red walls, red ceilings, and all I can think of is "The Masque of the Red Death" or "redrum."

What an ugly, horrendous waste of money, all so we could have a "world class" building. What utter codswallop.

Posted by: Carol on November 20, 2006 12:12 PM

14. The library sums up Seattle perfectly.

Spend a lot of money to feel good about something, but not actually accomplish your goals.

A conventional building could have cost $millions less. Those same $millions could have been spent, I don't know, on buying books. It's not a rocket scientist concept, this expecting that a library would spend its cash on its core function.

But this is Seattle, where appearance counts for 10x more than results. Better to slap a pretty package on a turd and adorn it with a ribbon than to ask the question, "Why am I polishing this turd?"

Posted by: Steve (was Steve_Dog) on November 20, 2006 12:45 PM

15. Spend a lot of money to feel good about something, but not actually accomplish your goals.

Very true. Street car comes to mind.

Posted by: Palouse on November 20, 2006 12:47 PM

16. Steve: "A conventional building could have cost $millions less"

Even better... they should have just filled the block with those mobile library trailers. Stack them on top of each other for even more utilitarian efficiency.

Jebus H. Christ on a rubber f'n crutch... the audacity of making something asthetically pleasing to the eye at tax payers expense.

Typical libtards.

Posted by: Capt. Sarcastic on November 20, 2006 01:11 PM

17. Jebus H. Christ on a rubber f'n crutch... the audacity of making something asthetically pleasing to the eye at tax payers expense.

Uh, huh. The problem is, that thing is an eyesore.

Normal buildings aren't eyesores. And they accomplish the mission of housing a lot of books for people to read, don't they?

But it's better in Seattle to make an architectural statement than to focus on getting kids to read.

I'll give the new library this: Never before have a city's bum and perv population been able to surf pron in such stylish surroundings.

Posted by: Steve (was Steve_Dog) on November 20, 2006 01:16 PM

18. Steve: "...that thing is an eyesore", and then, "...able to surf pron in such stylish surroundings"

So what is it then, stylish, an eyesore, or a stylish eyesore? Gosh, if you are going to whine and rant about a building that received national aclaim for its design and functionality, you should at least be consistent about it.

Posted by: Capt. Sarcastic on November 20, 2006 01:27 PM

19. So what is it then, stylish, an eyesore, or a stylish eyesore?

"Stylish" has nothing to do with aesthetic value, as anyone who's ever been to a modern art museum can attest.

I'm sure you like the library. Me, I know lots of people who get the latest works of art there, like the sountrack to the movie "How High":

[link]https://catalog.spl.org/ipac20/ipac.jsp?session=1164W587643G0.13861&profile=dial&source=~!horizon&view=subscriptionsummary&uri=full=3100001~!2095263~!0&ri=1&aspect=subtab14&menu=search&ipp=20&spp=20&staffonly=&term=nwa&index=.GW&uindex=&aspect=subtab14&menu=search&ri=1#focus

Saw the movie and thought it was pretty funny. I still have to question the educational merits of "How to roll a blunt", tho.

Any library system that runs short working hours and complains about inadequate staff pay yet insists on stocking the shelves with the latest CDs and DVDs, while sinking $millions into T-shaped wastes of architectural steel ought to take a good look at its priorities.

Posted by: Steve (was Steve_Dog) on November 20, 2006 01:37 PM

20. Any library system that runs short working hours and complains about inadequate staff pay yet insists on stocking the shelves with the latest CDs and DVDs, while sinking $millions into T-shaped wastes of architectural steel ought to take a good look at its priorities.

...and, I should add, so should a voter base that empowers morons like we have to keep blowing cash this way.

But then again, this is Seattle, where ganja smoke, PC policies and feel-good gestures replace real-world data and results.

Posted by: Steve (was Steve_Dog) on November 20, 2006 01:40 PM

21. The Library won a Silver Certificate for Leadership in Efficiency and Environmental Design, so it is indeed a "green" building. One can see tourists taking pictures of it almost every day. How many cities can say that about their central library? New York maybe, which puts us in good company indeed.

More importantly, it works well as a building; one can get to one's desired material within five minutes of entry. Had the city council spent MORE money, it would work even better, but they underfunded Koolhaas' vision.

Now, if we could just get the staff to dim the lights at sunset, so one could see the lighted city emerge in the top-floor Reading Room...

Posted by: Paddy Mac on November 20, 2006 10:00 PM

22. Agree with #8, Cato.

Posted by: WVH on November 21, 2006 01:00 AM

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