Central libraries

The "bad" thing sometimes about traveling with others is having to subsume your desires to other interests. So I didn't get to see as much in Los Angeles as I might of liked. One place I didn't get to spend enough time was the Central Library.

It's a very interesting example of library expansion that seems to have been ignored in the recent chase for iconic architecture, such as Seattle's Central Library by Rem Koolhaas, rather than on focusing on what makes a library great.

It's not packaging the architecture, as the Portland Oregon or Pittsburgh or NYC central libraries also prove.

In the 1980s, the LA Central Library experienced some terrible fires. The building, a great example of art deco architecture from the 1920s, needed to be upgraded.

Rather than abandoning the Central Library for another location, they expanded, underground. I am certain that this project helped strengthen the Downtown, which today is experiencing a great deal of in-migration and housing redevelopment of once abandoned office buildings.

The "new" facility is awesome, and provides for much more space--note to DC Library types--not less space, than the original facility. For example, the business section (I didn't have time to go back) had the most extensive selection of business periodicals that I have ever seen in a public or university library.

But this was easier to do because the library was always on a plaza, with room for expansion, rather than just a building crammed onto a block with other non-public buildings.