Last weekend, I visited the Seattle Central Library. It's a contemporary building designed by Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas, and is both a destination to walk through and marvel at, as well as a large functional library with a million books, DVDs and CDs to borrow and 400 computers for public use. Being in Seattle, of course, it also has its own underground parking for 148 cars, as well as its own coffee shop.
I gotta get a camera instead of relying on this iPhone.
The floor with the meeting rooms is all red.
You can pretend you are going into some kind of Doctor Who spaceship, or just admire the modern aesthetic.
Take the escalator straight to the top, where there is an incredible view of the city, and leads you to the book spiral. As far as I can tell, you go look over the city, then walk down in a huge spiral leading you through the whole Dewey Decimal system WITHOUT STOPPING OR HAVING TO GO TO DIFFERENT FLOORS OMG HOW AWESOME. Sarcasm about the library's enthusiasm aside, it was actually pretty neat.
Looking down you can see all the people on computers. Much to my confusion, it was far more than people actually reading books. Maybe they were looking up books to read? Who knows.
The elevator is pretty rad. I'm not scared, though, I'm amazed at how long it is.
Look down onto downtown Seattle!
Look down onto the fiction stacks! They are not in with the rest of the Deweys. They are on their own floor. I'm a big fan of how the stacks are not in neat rows, but look kind of organically placed wherever they happened to fall. Much more interesting that way, no? Those Dutch really do know how to maximize humanity in design.
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