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Image courtesy DCPL
The Examiner reports today that there's a little bit of controversy brewing over the design for the new Washington Highlands public library branch in Southwest. No big surprise there: when it comes to public libraries in the District, suddenly everyone's an architecture critic. The main arguments presented in the Examiner story seem to be that the design, by famous British architect David Adjaye, is just too weird and doesn't "fit the neighborhood." Presumably, the ANC commissioner quoted in the story would rather have some kind of more classical, square brick building that blends in with the rowhouses around it. Personally, I think it looks pretty rad, but that's the thing about aesthetics, I guess. You can't ever please everyone.
How do you feel about the proposed design?
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Hey! I saw them selling that library at the Ikea smörgasbörd! It's called the Pöpli and everyone hates the Pöpli kids. Even I do. I hate them so much!
I dig it!
I'm no aesthetician, but it sure seems ugly. When it comes to libraries, though, I'll give ugliness a pass depending on how interior space is used. The Seattle Central Library is tough on the eyes, but I've never had more fun exploring a building.
And just to prove the point of the article, I think the Seattle Library is one of the most beautiful buildings in the world, inside and out
I like it. If it stands out, maybe more people will notice/use it, instead of the standard brick building which everyone can just walk by without even knowing it's there.
Yeah, but isn't architecture supposed to consider it's surroundings? Could you imagine living in a neighborhood full of these buildings? It would be like living in bizarro world.
Ay, there's the rub. It is cool when there is one of these, but not a whole lot. Lock at the Lever building in NYC. Modern green glass in the middle of old school stone buildings. It was cool and unique, now, not so much.
That being said, I kind of like this. Library's and Universities seem to get a pass on crazy architecture.
WTF is it with DC and fugly-ass libraries? First MLK, now this? Here's an idea: how about a library that looks like a goddamned library instead of a Raid Roach Motel or a friggin Rubik's Snake shoved into an air filter? Just once, I'd like an architect to put down the protractor and compass and stop trying to re-interpret and deconstruct and just sit down calmly and literally F**K YOUR OWN FACE.
"Library's and Universities seem to get a pass on crazy architecture." And churches too, and I'm all for it. I don't end up like all new building either, but I'd rather not be a fan of something interesting than not be offended by something that is boring and fits in with a neighborhood.
"Yeah, but isn't architecture supposed to consider it's surroundings?"
I really hate this mindset. One has to wonder how many interesting architectural buildings were squashed because they didn't pass muster with a regressive historical preservation committee. In Europe, you'll see interesting and innovative designs shoved right in the middle 17th, 18th, and 19th century blocks all the time. Granted, the original building may have been bombed out in the forties, but still.
In this country, we fight new buildings all the time, and when something new is built that turns out to not work, like most Brutalist buildings, historical committees try to fight allowing those monstrosities from being torn down, even though they are hidious and don't work and smell like homeless pee and someone wants to try something new and interesting with the property.
my first thought was that it looks like giant carnivorous mutant elephants (in varying colors) have walked up to a lovely glass walled library, smashed the windows, and are munching on its patrons. That little green one on the left is the baby.
hahaha, I see it!!
It might be the chronic, but I see that too.
It also reminds me of those things from Star Wars.
But yes, it's ugly.
The design is based on a little-known Cubist work by Picasso called, "Sarlaac Descending Staircase to Eat Library Patrons."
I think they're technically APAPs -- Anthrophagous Pachydermous Aboveground Peripatetics.
They make me think of post-modern McDonald's playhouses.
I hope they have a playground with a ballroom with a Star Wars trash compactor monster in the bottom! Or at least a pedophile dressed as one.
such a classic description! i love the design. it looks it might make the critics happier if they took the elephants away; the basic design is pretty cool all by itself, but i especially like the elephants.
I'm not sure I would say ugly, but it is pretty random and doesn't seem likely to be the best idea. The main body looks fine, why add on all those weird blobs?
Sorta reminds me of the De Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. Looks like most of it will have a lot of light, which is a plus. Build it, the neighbors will get used to it, and it'll become a landmark.
First thought: It's ugly, and I like it! Second thought: considering that the library is located on Atlantic St. SW, a lot of patrons might be mighty surprised to find themselves on the east side of the Anacostia.
I think it fits in with much of the architecture of Southwest perfectly, in that it will be considered ugly and dated not long after it is constructed.
That building just seems more difficult to build (i.e., more expensive) than what is really needed. If private companies want to design avant-garde buildings at their own expense, then fine. But it's certainly difficult to justify this design given the likely added expense to the city.
It's one thing to be quirky and eschew traditional finishes, but this is just pointlessly random. There's absolutely no balance and no elegance of proportion. If there was supposed to be anything worthwhile to come out of modernism, it was that by stripping away decoration you'd get at a more essential nature of the the space and its shape. As we venture further into the post-modern circus of random shapes and eff-you proportions it seems that we have even lost the worthwhile parts of modernism.
This building reminds me of a teenager who tries to hard to be non-conformist. Ok great, you don't look like the other kids. But if you're going to have your own style its essential that you actually have a style. Randomness only works when its not actually random. A random appearance must be the result of a good and selective eye. True randomness or randomness without an eye produces crap like this.
If this this is built, 40 years from now the Jetsons are going to be standing around the library wondering why on earth anyone thought this design was a good idea. Windows are good, and it doesn't have to be rectangular, and it's good to be a little different, but how can you escape the obvious fact that this is a tacky design?
I can see myself going to this library. By jetpack.
Come to think of it, it does look like a swanky porno set from the not-too-distant future. The one without the Morlocks in it? What was it called? Oh, yeah. Logan's Run.
Definitely ugly. At first glance I thought the left side was still under construction. It doesn't fit together, and I'm glad it won't be near me.
I can see the comments over at GreaterGreaterWashington.
"Wait, there are no bike racks!!!"
"And why is that guy riding a bicycle on the sidewalk!"
My opinion: ugly, ugly, ugly.
"Modernity need not be a frightening thing," said Adjaye, who was paid $1.3 million for his work.
Get back to me after you've been fed some acid and forced to spend the night in your monstrosity, Mr. Adjaye, if that is indeed your name. I've got another name for you, and it's "Worse Than Hitler." Come to think of it, can we still get Albert Speer to design this thing? He's dead? No matter, we'll get his grandson. It'll certainly cost less than $1.3 million and it won't look like some retarded monkey ate some Legos and matchsticks and defecated on a streetcorner. And let me guess, the toilets look like Möebius strips made out of candy corn, right? WTF am I supposed to do if I've got the runs? I don't have time to figure out what's a toilet and what's a non-hostile example of modernity!
Here we have yet another example of rich honkeys telling low-income folk they're just too stupid to appreciate fine art. The Council needs to mandate that architects must be required to actually live in their buildings for one year, in a cage, naked, with a green banana up their @ss. I don't know what this would accomplish but it would certainly provide me with with some cheap entertainment. No, Mr. Adjaye, I'm not afraid of modernity. I'm afraid of walking dildo architects who wouldn't know "form compliments function" if it stood on a Barcelona chair and peed in their face.
Yes. Yes it is ugly.
It's too modern artsy for me. Yes, it's a designer sketch but it's not right for a library. Besides, it'll still be infested with bums taking up most tables and chairs stinking up the place.
Somewhere, a homeless dude is looking at the design of this library fantasizing about passing out in one of the comfy chairs within. Perhaps that chair will become known as his spot; a place where he can go and unwind after a long day of not taking a shower. Once formed, the bond between a homeless dude and his comfy chair is not easily broken - not for all the fortified wine in the world would he give it up.
Send it to Kunstler; it would probably make his "Eyesore of the Week". Plus we'd get to hear a delightful 200 word rant about how the suburbs are filled with obese, overgrown man-children.
But as to the library, it's not so much that it's ugly (though it is) as that it will look like dog's vomit in less than a decade.
I respectfully disagree with your otherwise astute observation.
The building looks like dog's vomit now.
More like barf-itecture. Am I right fellow neoclassicists? Holla at ya boy!
usually architecture opposed by the general public is good. however, in this case, not so much. I was SHOCKED this was designed by Adjey. usually he has a good sensibility and restraint while at the same time creating subtle pieces of architecture that are well planned. this....is an abomination. Its fine if its brecollage. Its fine if its wacky (see Gehry). But this looks inspired by nothing other than a series of half-assembled student models slammed together. it might be acceptable if it was new stuff crazily put together, but its not, its 15 of the same Adjey projects we've seen before. this design makes me sad.
I was quite impressed by his design for the new Smithsonian. and I was also impressed listening to him speak at the national building museum last year, despite his girlish way of carnying himself talking about his architecture. I shouldve taken that meekness as a sign. this design, and all the newer stuff he's coming out with, reflects a fundamental lack of vision, direction, and self confidence that a more experienced designer would have. its no wonder his firm went out of business.
Ugly/pretty is such a lazy metric for architecture. Does anyone believe that David Adjaye thinks this building is beautiful? That that's why he set out to make it this way, to make something pretty?
To my eyes this building is clever but it runs the risk of looking roughshod if there are not plans in place to keep it shiny. Given that it's the DCPL, it's reasonable to be concerned about the building's care and longevity. Cf. The MLK Memorial Library.
how is this "clever". without explaining your term it too becomes lazy. clever in the since that mr. adjey is proposing a monsterous piece of shit for an already decrepit neighborhood? that kind of clever?
I think you're onto something. I dub thee the "Adrian Fenty Monstrous Piece of $h!t Memorial Library."
Those who don't learn from history are condemned to re-elect it.
Monstrous Piece of $hit for live, mutha'uka
Perhaps they can move the Christian Science Church on 16th and Eye to this location and repurpose it as a library.
I like the idea of being creative. But vomiting on the paper and then connecting the splatter is not how to do good design. does it really need THREE weird, unrelated extensions?
But they're not unrelated! Look carefully and what do you see? A grey-headed, red-bodied elephant pooping out a massive Purolator Air Filter with a wad of green on the end, probably a cluster of dead bugs. Those things collect bugs like nobody's business. Also, they need to mow the lawn across the street.
It's a metaphor for modernity.
Its fine; something different. And its a library in SW area most on here would never be in the neighborhood to visit -so really who cares
it has a parking lot?
horrible looking. just horrible.
why can't they just build a classical structure that will appeal to everyone? what ever happened to universal appeal?
Because "classical structures" and "universal appeal" have fallen out of favor among the architectural cognoscenti, having been replaced by "playful modernism" and "fug nightmare." But you're right, there should be some middle ground between modernism and classicism. I'm thinking huge Greco-Roman/Socialist realism statues of naked heroes with huge racks and priapism holding Kindles and staring off thoughtfully towards the horizon. The statues are made out of recycled milk bottles.
meanwhile, Adjaye's other DC library (Francis Gregory in SE) looks exquisite. http://www.dclibrary.org/dcpl/cwp/view.asp?a=1273&q=570426
Honestly, I think I might like it if it were only one or two colors. But when it's got three different pastels, plus the beige main building, plus all the windows, it looks it was designed by Steve Jobs on mushrooms.
"isn't architecture supposed to consider it's surroundings?"
"how about a library that looks like a goddamned library"
"I'd like an architect to put down the protractor and compass and stop trying to re-interpret and deconstruct"
"It's too modern artsy for me."
"barf-itecture. Am I right fellow neoclassicists?"
"why can't they just build a classical structure that will appeal to everyone?"
"what ever happened to universal appeal?"
These comments are why DC gets too little in the way of architecture that isn't expectable, or without columns. You'd never have allowed the Guggenheim, you would have joined the cry against the Gehry addition to the Corcoran, you would have laughed at Wright's proposals.
You are so right.
updated link to the Francis Gregory design imagery- http://www.dclibrary.org/constructionupdates/francis