gIITD: #4

Rem Koolhaas makes buildings for photographers

Seattle Public Canyon. Cfwan. 2010

This past saturday I took a day trip down to Seattle to visit my second O.M.A. building (The First being the IIT McCormick Tribune Campus Centre). The Seattle Public Library is a building that I have longed to visit ever since its completion in 2004. It did no dissapoint on any scale or at any point throughout. From the wacky yet refined form of the building to most minute and very thoughtful detailing it was a pleasure to spend a few hours wandering inside. However, what was most amazing to me was how photogenic the building is. It is one of the most fun buildings I have ever had the pleasure of photographing and it will no doubt be exploited by many cinematographers and photographers in years to come.

Exterior looking up from Fourth Ave &

Madison St. Seattle WA. Cfwan. 2010.

Having looked at countless Norman Foster projects featuring a diagrid envelope system, I have to admit that I was quite jaded before arriving in Seattle. I felt that the repetition of light and shadow across the grid would approach monotony. I found the opposite to be true. Unlike other diagrids, the OMA/REX version is quite muscular and raw in its detailing and presence. This heaviness lends a real drama to the constant play of light and shadow on the interior and reminds me of scenes underneath the elevated railway in New York from Francis Ford Coppola's The GodFather. The heaviness also provides some shading and control of unwanted light in an otherwise all glass building.

Living Room. Cfwan.2010

Stacks. Cfwan.2010

It is really is hard to take a poor photograph inside the Seattle Public Library. Looking outwards through any of the exterior surfaces, one gets a dynamic play of minor and major structural elements that seem to collide in quite resolved and framed moments. Similar to the CCTV building, this envelope/structure is intelligently designed for specific conditions accross its surface. The grid is noticeably doubled at certain points between struts and columns (see below).

Seventh Floor Reading Room. Cfwan. 2010

Seventh Floor Reading Room From Stairwell.

Cfwan. 2010.

If the the rather masculine play light and shadow is the story for the skin, the guts of the library are much more cuddly and playful . The spaces cut off from views outward literally explode with vibrant colours exectured in a virtual catalogue of different and rather unique finishes. The effect is that the eye is continually excited by difference in colour and shade. It really is a restless interior architecture. The positive side of this restlessness is that each program area is very unique and one's place inside the building is always certain.

Book Spiral. Cfwan. 2010

REDRUM. Cfwan.2010

The 4th floor, or Red Floor of the Library was an amazing place to hang out. Stepping out of the flourescent green elevator into a shiny, dark red hallway one almost has to revert to touch to navigate out of the elevator bank while the eyes adjust. The sensual experience is quite well choreographed. Touring around the floor one eventually arrives at a T-junction of two hallways and dead end corridor (shown above). The dead end it just that, yet one finds a gaurd posted in front of a strange and attractive surface (that I believe is a left-over plane from the floor below). I wanted to note this becuase instead of covering this remnant up, the architects decided to expose the surface, paint it in a texturized paint and give it a pure white spot light (the only pure white light on that floor). This end space now becomes and event within the small floor. I think deconstructivists like Daniel Liebeskind could learn something from this treatment of rogue spaces.