Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas revealed his preliminary design for a new central library in downtown Seattle at a public presentation December 15. He described the planned $159-million project as a building with five platforms that “float in a cloud of more improvised activities,” according to the next day’s Seattle Times. A shaft of open space will run from the top level containing offices to the bottom, which will house an underground parking plaza and a children’s library.
The new building will be wrapped in a copper-colored mesh of steel tubing sandwiched between two layers of specially treated glass designed to darken and change color in response to sunlight—a feature chosen take advantage of Seattle’s drizzly, gray skies. “It will engage in a very interesting dialogue with the weather,” Koolhaas said.
Seattle City Librarian Deborah Jacobs said she was thrilled with the preliminary design, and that the library trustees were also pleased. Construction will begin in mid-2001 and end in 2003. Koolhaas was selected as architect in May 1999 from a pool of 28 firms in six countries.
Posted December 27, 1999.