The Seattle Public Library, Seattle, Washington

 

The Seattle Public Library is a delectable spider of a building, rising up (ever rising, somehow in motion without motion) from Seattle's rain soaked streets in a contorted, crack-boned, glimmering miracle of glass, concrete, and steel. Since I'd looked it up before, I knew what to expect, but the massive audacity of it still managed to knock a bibliophile on her figurative arse.

But while the exterior might trick one into believing that its design is meant as nothing more than a stunt, entering the library from the 4th avenue side--a mellow, understated introduction--and gliding up the escalators to the grand third floor quickly reveals a multitude of brilliant, exciting, and dynamic choices in design, structure, and function.

First floor, aglow in light.

I moved through the entire structure with my mouth agape and transformed from a fairly articulate modern humanoid, to grunting, knuckle-dragging sub-ape, owlishly pondering her first eclipse. And that's really what the Seattle Public Library is: An eclipse of a known form, rendered new and electrifying. I was, quite simply, in awe. I didn't know whether to study or pray there.

I'm not even going to attempt to describe the architectural details of this place. Instead, I will rely only on my sub-ape vocabulary and beg forgiveness later. Only real architects could speak about this library with any level of intelligence, anyway.

The third floor is dominated by the "Living Room," which is possibly the most insane living room ever conceived of by a board room full of supervillains squabbling over carpet swatches and upholstery samples. A meeting that probably ended with four shot, two incinerated via laser, and one devoured by a shark in the subfloor "Ocean Room" replete with live coral reefs, stingrays, jellyfish, and one very unlucky handyman named Steve.

Stairway to Heaven.

View from my chair in the Living Room. See the Red Room behind
the mesh wall? I saw figures moving under the red lights but couldn't
figure out how to get back there. Will they let me live there? What is
The Secret? Ahh, thanks Wikipedia.

This massive column rises all the way to the top. The
elevators are on the back side of it.

One of several wild carpets in the Living Room area.

The third floor is open at the center almost to the top of the building, with much of the living room space open at least a couple of stories. All of this vast openness would seem an inevitably cacophonous mess, something to be fled from instead of embraced as a place of study, reflection, or immersive reading, but it is somehow calm, even meditative. This was the case when I visited, at any rate, so it's possible that the place gets downright rowdy, but even with the noise of people talking, the sound was somehow tempered. Magical soundproofing? Or just magix? Lasers?

Front entrance to the third floor--I forgot how dang
hilly Seattle can be. 

This is a cool thing that is cool, featured above the
information desk on the third floor, right inside the front door.

All the light in the world.

Stacks on the third floor.

Stacks on one of the "Books Spiral" floors.

A view of the second floor from a higher floor.

Desks around the exterior of the Books Spiral.

So Many Desks!

I traveled as close to the top as I could get before walking down the "Books Spiral" that occupies many of the midlevel floors, with Dewey Decimal numbers marked in the concrete as you walk past each row of stacks. The library's capacity is truly mind bending, and I loved the clever layout, where stacks could be accessed either by interior staircases or long, winding ramps.

The exterior space on each of the Book Spiral floors was taken up by desk after desk after desk. Since I was going to be walking around the Market and downtown, I didn't want to lug my laptop with me, so I'd left it behind at the Air BNB. It was a genuine bummer not to get a chance to take my place at one of the zillion or so desks available to patrons, but it was enough just to get to experience such an exquisitely weird library.

 At the tippy top, where Robyn advised I should definitely go (Robyyyn), you hook around a corner from the elevators and there is the teeniest, tiniest little walkway where you can look over the side and just pee and pee with terror. Or, you know, just stand there and try not to cry. I will admit, it really did test my ability to face my fears. It's about an eight or nine story drop, and everything down there looks quite tiny. The air is extremely still and I was hyper aware of my breathing. It made the skywalks in Salt Lake's main library look like the low diving board at the kiddie pool. (Yes, one you could die from, but still.)

Soundproofing or Space Station Xenon?

The edge of reason.

Aaaaaaiiiiggghhhhh.

My friend Amanda mentioned that this was her "local library" when she was in school, a fact I found both wonderful and unbelievable. I couldn't imagine being so lucky, to have something so intensely special and singular at your disposal day in and day out. So much of life is quite ordinary--go to suburbia and revel in its rigid squareness and vaulted ceilings with rebate chandeliers and you will know what I mean...hell, go to most libraries, whose function overrides whimsy, charm, or any intent on breaking out of the Library mold. If you've read along through even some of this blog, you will notice trends in architecture, color, lighting, etc. It's what boards are meant to do--bring together all the ideas and apply practicality, sustainability, frugality...in consensus. This is why the Seattle main library is magic. You can buy their "Rem Koolhaas" cover story, but I'll always believe in that board of supervillains, throwing ideas and knives around a mahogany table (festooned with levers and buttons alight with eeeevil), coming up with all kinds of crazy, and making this magnificent arachnid, alive in all her glittery splendor.