2000 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Rem Koolhaas has given the $156 million Seattle Public Library an angular glass facade encased by mesh-like metal ‘skin’ that surrounds five levels, easily stands as its most visible architectural element. Commissioned by the city in 1999 to undertake the design, Koolhaas originally had included a copper screen on the glass exterior that was eliminated due to concerns by the Seattle Design Commission that it would make the building too transparent.

Koolhaas describes Seattle Public Library as “the building to signal that something special is going on here”. The design runs counter to the traditional notion of a library as a place devoted solely to books. Although the design includes book stacks, emphasis is placed on spacious community spaces and areas for media such as technology, photography and video.

The eleven-level library is wrapped in a diamond-shaped curtain wall that folds and cantilevers onto the street. The diagonal structural grid of the curtain wall acts as a seismic brace and resists wind load. Structural support comes from foot-thick copper tubes which form a honeycomb pattern around the building. This copper ‘skin’ holds together five platforms which appear to float. Columns are grouped at the center of the building, along with the main concrete lift core, creating a dynamic, free interior space.

The Seattle Public Library board of trustees voted unanimously on a revised design consisting of a curtain wall with insulated glass panels inside that enclose an aluminum mesh layer to filter the sun, create soft interior light to enhance reading areas, and reduce heat and glare. It also catches views of Mount Rainier and Puget Sound.

Inside the building is made up of a variety of spaces that starts at the living room for browsing, then public plaza, a coffee shop, 275-seat open auditorium, a children’s room at the bottom, a mixing chamber or reference area where patrons can seek help from librarians, staff offices, and to ever more diverse open meeting spaces, culminating at the top floor quiet reading room.

As in many Rem Koolhaas buildings, one is seldom at eye-level from one space to another. This is most evident when circulating vertically within narrow escalators that cut through the upper-floor book stacks, which in turn spiral up four levels on a two-degree slope. The sloped spiral stacks house the majority of the non-fiction collection; the spiral avoids the need to break up the collection on different levels as in traditional libraries. One is also never far from looking down onto the plaza, which offers a good orientation mark at each level.

Color is used to define different interior functions in Seattle Public Library. Against the black ceiling and grey interior palette, these colored areas are great wayfinding devices. Escalators, elevators, staircases and large transition areas between floors were called out with bright yellow color. Since much of the building is sloping ramps this kind of call out is surprisingly helpful. The black ceiling also accentuates the vertical nature of large public gathering spaces. Sandwiched between the grand plaza and reference area are the closed meeting rooms, defined by the red floor and curved walls and ceiling.

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