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-Ladies and gentlemen,
welcome to the inaugural tour of the new Central Library.
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-The start of the 20th century and
Seattle plans a new Central Library at Fourth and Madison.
By the start of the 21st century,
the corner is a post Y2K wonder.
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The highest tech library in the world,
head librarian Deborah Jacobs,
when it opened in 2004.
-There were very few people that applauded the design
when they saw it.
-Including library board members,
skeptical of giving the go ahead
to Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas's big box ideas.
-When you walk into that lobby,
if anybody going to say, "Wow?" -I hope so.
I hope they say wow the first time
they see the building down the street.
-It wowed.
-You know, whoever would have guessed
that our beloved Mariners would be in town
for a homestand and the hottest ticket
would be the Public Library.
-I want to be able to walk in that front door and say,
"Wow, we got it."
And I think we do have it. -Yeah, it's beautiful.
I'm speechless just like taking it in.
Wow. -What's behind the wow?
-I suspect you've heard that it looks,
so they have stacked up a bunch of books
and then moved them, and that was the design.
I have heard that as well.
I don't believe that to be true.
-Seattle Channels archives tell the real tale.
Architect Joshua Ramus shows the bar graph charting
library services by percentage of building use.
Sections were pulled out
and skewed to maximize light and views.
-The shape of the building
and its design was literally a mapping of this three
dimensionally directly into this.
So if you could actually hold the two together,
you would see that each platform
and each space in between is in this organization
as we had created on spreadsheet
and its dimension is completely determined
by the amount of program we're trying to fit in.
And that really was the core concept for the building.
Our first model of that was this one.
-From model to 11 storied stories.
-Hi. How can I help you today?
-Genealogy specialist John Lamont has worked
at the downtown branch since opening day.
-There was a line around the building.
Just such a spectacle.
You know, just so many people coming through the building.
It was just to sea of people.
-Let the wild rumpus begin.
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-One thing that didn't wow, a wearable communication device.
-It was this new cool technology piece
and you push a little button to log in
and you push a little button to call your colleagues
and it didn't work that great.
-And the library location once known for its escalator,
now has an infamous one.
-It was just kind of funny.
Someone would lean in and they'd ask where's the down escalator.
In this building there's up escalators
to get you from 5 to 7 and 7 to 10
but you have to take public stairs or the elevator
to get back down.
-It's a little confusing and it would be great
if we had it down escalator.
-It would be able to let people off
at the 8th floor art gallery and music practice rooms.
Four floors down,
the most photographed spot in the library, the all red floor.
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On the ground floor,
a children's reading room and an auditorium,
public spaces, offices, and the books all encased in glass.
-Knock on a steel,
but we have not had issues with leakage.
-Not even with the 10,000 windows are washed.
-This is my favorite building by far to work on
and there's a lot of similarities
with mountain climbing.
-Exterior hooks and water spigots allow Jasper Baksh
and his crew to clean roughly four square blocks of glass,
some of it angle inward.
-You're holding on with these ropes here
and you're just sitting in a harness.
You've got to scrub these windows,
but then below you, just 10 floors of empty space really,
cars driving by below, and it's just exciting.
-Once a year,
a Puget Sound window maintenance team spends
two to three weeks scaling and descaling library windows.
-Sometimes you will find bird droppings
on the underside of the building
and that is extremely bizarre to me. [seagull caws]
I don't know what's going on there.
And there's not a part of it that's,
you know, harder to reach.
You just have to know how to get there.
Everything's designed really well.
Honestly, it's a very interesting building.
-I love walking in this building every day
and I think of this building
as sort of a community cathedral
with these incredible triangular panes of glass.
I mean, what a backdrop?
-Sunsets are often pretty amazing color
and the lights just streaming through and, you know,
the lattice work.
The patterns are projected on the floor and the walls
and it's beautiful, you know.
And then in the winter we get little tufts of snow, you know,
in the diamond shape.
-I think it still meets the needs
of what community are using it for,
to access information, to engage with each other,
to engage with ideas.
Whether I would call it high tech,
I think it's where it needs to be.
-I feel like we've got the tools that we need.
You know, it still feels new.
I think people who come visit still feel
like it's fresh and exciting.
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Watch CityStream Tuesday nights at seven
on the Seattle Channel. Or find us anytime at
seattlechannel.org.
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