Talk:Seattle Central Library

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Celebrating 20 years: The story behind Seattle’s iconic eye-catching library from Seattle Channel

Untitled

Updated information on Gate's donation and added an image of the Red Floor- Tylersmiler 04:44, 23 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This page could use an image. I'll try to take one myself one of these days, but if another Wikipedian's got one, feel free to beat me to it. -- Scarequotes 22:09, May 18, 2004 (UTC)

Seattle Public Library article

If anyone ever wants to put together an article on the Seattle Public Library system, all the facts you'll need appear to be here: http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=about_history_history --Lukobe 04:56, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]

I've started an article on the SPL, but it's only a bare outline at the moment. --Lukobe 20:50, 9 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reverted edit

I have reverted most (but not all) of the changes in this edit by ShadowDragon. This is my explanation:

Architecture critics very uniformly--as close to universally as I think I've seen in my lifetime--raved about this building. As such, a raving quote--properly attributed as such--is proper for the lead, and adds interest to the article as a whole. For this reason, I restored the Muschamp quote from Critical Response to the lead.

The library 'is' striking. The delete of that word is unnecessary. Striking means it's surprising and immediately gets your attention. Whether you like it or not, I don't think anyone can reasonably say it's dull. For this reason, I restored the word 'striking'.

The comment about the New Urbanists is lacking. I did some websearches and, indeed, found comparisons of the Koolhaas library to Gehry. But from what I can tell from reading websites, New Urbanists seem to use "Gehry" as a curse word. Gehry and Koolhaas have very little in common, and the Library--all angles, made of extremely common-use building materials, designed via function-then-form rather than the reverse--is antithetical to a lot of what Gehry stands for. I'd be fine with a a lengthier quote making that comparison in concrete terms, but simply saying the library is "Gehry-esque" amounts to innuendo. For this reason, I removed the comment about New Urbanists condemning the library as Gehry-esque.

--TreyHarris 08:29, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Note, TreyHarris discussed this at length with several people, including myself on IRC #wikipedia, and this was the consensus. Burgundavia 08:31, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I haven't yet found a good quote about the Seattle Central Library being Gehry-esque, so I'm fine with that being taken out. In fact, the closest thing I can find to a substantive New Urbanist criticism of the building is here. I've also seen a lot of less substantive New Urbanist criticism on a mailing list to which I subscribe, not that "a blazing chandelier to swing your dreams upon" is substantive anyway. I think a lot of their dislike for this building should be addressed generically in the new urbanism article. (That article should be moved to New Urbanism, by the way.) Still, I think it's legitimate to say they criticized it as starchitecture, as long as that's presented as their opinion. That's a fairly widespread term in New Urbanist circles and it's just as valid to have an article for it as it is to have articles for coalition of the willing, family values, and anti-war. ShadowDragon 09:48, 6 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I think some discussion of Gehry should be in the article, since it seems to come up in a lot of local coverage of the Library (versus the EMP). The fact that Seattle has had two critically talked about buildings in such a short time, from two prominent architects is something the city should be proud of. Although perhaps a seperate article about architecture in Seattle is more appropriate. --drew1718 13:27, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

New Urbanists are not Stepford wives, and to say "New Urbanists use 'Gehry' as a curse word" is out of place in Wikipedia. The most recent annual Congress for the New Urbanism gave its top award to Gehry. The Guggenheim Bilbao is on the cover of The New Civic Art, edited by Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk. Second, thank you for the link to my blog, but I don't speak for New Urbanists. Nor does Duany or Peter Calthorpe, for that matter. Only the Congress for the New Urbanism does. Speaking for myself, I wrote about the reactions of people other than architects and architectural critics here. I wrote about about New Urbanism, Modernism and architects generalizing about New Urbanism here.--jmassengale

Local Reaction

The last part is confusing. "Cold and uninviting"? What are the sources? --drew1718 12:04, 24 December 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I removed the statement, reproduced here:

Public response in Seattle has been mixed. Many users find the building striking, but also many local residents find the exterior ugly and uninviting for a library.

For about 20-30 mins, I tried to find an article to validate the sentiment, however, I realized after a bit that 'mixed' can imply around 50% approval but technically mean somewhere between 1% and 99% approval, and the use of the word 'many', especially how it's used above, is too vague and subjective. The whole line possibly crosses into original research as well. ShadowDragon (or anyone else), you're welcome to rewrite that sentence but I suggest that 'mixed' and 'many' only be used when there are sources that state where the percentages lie. hateless 01:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Images

I am recieving an error in loading this pages images, that reads:

Error creating thumbnail: convert: unable to open image `/mnt/upload3/wikipedia/en/8/84/Seattle_Central_Library.jpg': No such file or directory. convert: missing an image filename `/mnt/upload3/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/84/Seattle_Central_Library.jpg/180px-Seattle_Central_Library.jpg'. Seattle Central Library Exterior

Anyone else notice the same? DVD+ R/W 21:09, 19 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The error has gone away. I have uploaded a bunch of images of this library. I'll post them in a gallery if anyone is interested... DVD+ R/W 06:29, 21 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Site of Library

Was the new Central library built on top of the site for the old libraries? Were the old libraries demolished, or are the located in another area of the city, now repurposed? -- Eptin 09:45, 21 January 2007 (UTC) _{Subscript text}[reply]

reconsidered praise

about that part, it says "some" have reconsidered their praise, but there's only one person cited. Has there been a noticeable reconsideration of praise?

It should be reworded; I've done so. Sylvain1972 16:42, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

dead link

this link - "^[1]" is dead. here is the archived post - http://archive.is/Fbw1. But wikipedia won't let me add it, saying that it doesn't accept archived links. What to do? Can anyone find a link to the entire list? Bangabandhu (talk) 03:33, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

References

^ Smith, Andy (2007-02-06). "108. Seattle Public Library (2004) - Seattle, WA; Rem Koolhaas; Office for Metropolitan Architecture; LMN Architects (America's Favorite Architecture)". Blog.aia.org. Retrieved 2012-08-15.

Over detailed

Does this article have too much detail - when links to eg [1] might be more appropriate? Jackiespeel (talk) 17:00, 20 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified

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[1] Smith, Andy (2007-02-06). "108. Seattle Public Library (2004) - Seattle, WA; Rem Koolhaas; Office for Metropolitan Architecture; LMN Architects (America's Favorite Architecture)". Blog.aia.org. Retrieved 2012-08-15.

[1]