Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 2 | Do Libraries Still Matter?

Carnegie Reporter, Vol. 3, No. 2 | Do Libraries Still Matter?

In the era of the Internet, will we still go to libraries to borrow books and do research? The answer seems to be a resounding yes, because libraries are more than just a place to keep volumes on dusty shelves.


Libraries are supposed to be quiet, but it’s hard to imagine a place causing more noise than the new central branch of the Seattle Public Library, which sits with its off-kilter geometry and brightly colored interiors at the heart of a city mainly associated with digital technology.

“In more than 30 years of writing about architecture,” Herbert Muschamp enthused in The New York Times, “this is the most exciting new building it has been my honour to review.” He described the Rem Koolhaas design as a “blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon.”

Time Magazine put the building atop its list of best architecture in 2004. Visitors thronged the place from the day it opened, some of them flying to Seattle just to check out the building much as people fly to Bilbao to visit Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum. Seattle’s up-to-date Central Library seems to embody everything new.