Comment on Central Library Proposals

Last Thursday, city council heard presentations from the three contenders vying for the opportunity to design the new central library. The contenders are Barnes Gromatzky Kosarek Architects and Taniguchi with Holzman Moss, Lake | Flato and Shepley Bulfinch, and PageSoutherlandPage and Patkau Architects.

The presentations and pdfs of the proposals are on the city's website. Also on that page are comment forms soliciting public comment on each proposal. Public input will be only accepted through Friday, October 31, 2008. The presentations and pdfs provide a lot of information about the design process and the teams' relevant past work, but they don't contain much information about what any of the teams would actually build at the site.

None of the team's directly addressed public transportation at the site, but we liked the idea of building the parking such that it could be converted into long-term book storage in the event Austin's future is less car-centric than its present. One thing that we are pretty confident about: whichever team is chosen, the result will include a lot of limestone.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Shawn Shillington in News on October 29, 2008 2:10 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

Tarvin

It'll be a bum shelter, like the current library.

leggyblonde

i hope the new central library will be more than a "warehouse of books."

LoudMouth

It's also nice to be able to go downtown to a big central library that has a lot of books rather than look for a book, find where it's listed, only to show up and find out it just got checked out. Then you have to travel all over town (by bus if you don't have a car) to find the book.

In addition to that, people that ride the bus because they are poor are also less likely to have home internet service so they'd have to ride the bus to their local branch, find out where the book is at the catalog there, and then take the bus to anohter branch to locate the book.

mdahmus

Tarvin, because the whole city can get downtown on the bus in one hop and just as easily by car, and there's a lot more people living (and working) in and near downtown than you think (the world ain't the suburbs, d00d).

elvislives

Too late for a land swap? Maybe the City of Austin could offer Federal Subpoena rebate incentives or something.

Regardless of the location, I prefer the Lake Flato presentation model. It appears they would be the most qualified candidate to produce a great library.

Tarvin

I'm dense. Why have a big central library (warehouse of books) when for the same price you could have 4 or 5 smaller libraries in places where people actually live and can get to?

mdahmus

freakin' A. I can't believe I never connected those dots, elvislives (not sarcastic here, I really had never thought of the site that way). Would have been a great spot for the library.

elvislives

True. But we're stuck with the city we've got. And I wouldn't trade it for Detroit.

You know, the old Intel building that will be the site for a new federal courthouse seems like it would have been an ideal location for a library, no? Would have been nice if the local leadership would have had the foresight to snatch that up before selling it off to the Feds.

mdahmus

Great cities usually aren't stuck with such a bad environment for city-building as we enjoy here in Texas, what with a state government that loathes both urbanism AND book-larnin'.

elvislives

For being a self-proclaimed progressive city, Austin's library is an embarrassment. I'm not sure about this being the ideal location either but something must be built to improve upon the existing. Great cities have great libraries.

southernskye

Ok I guess I'm completely out of touch, when it comes to Austin.

I didn't realize they needed a new downtown library the one thats there isn't that old.

LoudMouth

I agree, this is a really inaccessable and stupid place to put the library. Obviously the people who put it there have never waited on a bus at 5th and Bowie or around there. They don't even stop half the time.

The presentations all looked schizophrenic like the designers hadn't really thought this through and just put some shit together. Business as usual with the library as far as the city is concerned.

mdahmus

Thanks for the linkout. None of the team addresses public transportation at the site because they can't. You can't decide that you're going to run a bunch of major bus routes a few blocks out of the way, snap your fingers, and make it happen, which is why this is a really stupid place to build the new library.