Library Builders

Libraries are at a cusp: poised uneasily between the legacy of Gutenberg and the byte of the digital age - Michael Brawne
The historical perception of the library is being undermined by the digital revolution. Some critics say that, in the current information age, the traditional repositories are becoming obsolete mausoleums for books. The contemporary library now has to provide a multitude of services, often at the heart of a community, while remaining flexible enough to adapt to ever-increasing technological demands.
Library Builders presents over forty contemporary libraries, ranging in scale from the grandeur of national libraries to small, intimate community libraries, from public libraries to university libraries, which feature the different qualities of both the traditional bibliothèque and the futuristic mediathèque. It examines the potential future of this building type in the twenty-first century, with ever-changing demands for supply and dissemination of information.
The wider issues of current library design are addressed in a selection of essays by prominent library builders and critics: Michael Brawne, John Olley, Paul Lukez, Michael Spens, Richard MacCormac and Merrill Elam.
Among the many library types presented here are the national: Dominique Perrault's Bibliothèque Nationale de France and Colin St John Wilson's British Library; the city: Richard Meier's City Library in The Hague, Bolles-Wilson's Münster City Library, Mecanoo's Almelo Public Library; and the academic: Sir Norman Foster and Partners' Squire Law Library, Cambridge and Hodgetts + Fung's unorthodox Towell Library at UCLA. Other prominent architects featured include: José Ignacio Linazasoro, Moore Ruble Yudell, Antoine Predock, Aldo Rossi, Moshe Safdie, Schwartz/Silver, Scogin Elam and Bray, and James Stirling Michael Wilford & Associates.