5.15.2020 | DIGS.NET 29
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is ostentatious, the result is one of
deliberation and restraint, based
more on a material beauty that is
hard to miss. Wood is a wonder here;
throughout the interior, a sustainably
sourced western red cedar from
nearby British Columbia offers an
organic richness that suits cowboy-
hatted Calgary. Wood slats line the
perimeter of the spectacular open
atrium, and wood spirals rise up to
a view of sky through an oculus.
Concrete, on the other hand, is left
exposed and unfinished, with beams
and columns meant to recall a stoa—
the open-air colonnades of ancient
Greek architecture that doubled as
gathering spaces. "The rawness of
the material palette is intended to
give people the sense that the library
is a place of engagement, rather than
a sacrosanct repository for books,"
according to Snøhetta.
Ordered on what Snøhetta calls a
fun-to-serious spectrum, the library's
pubic spaces occupy the lower
levels, including the lively Children's
Library and its playhouses. Higher
up are studious environments like the
Great Reading Room—a jewel box
of focused thought supplemented
by creative inspiration via the Artist
in Residence Studio. In this space
one reflects on one's own thoughts
or, more ambitiously, those of the
great Athenian thinker Plato, whose
works were once housed at the Great
Library of Alexandria as they are now
at Central Library, and who wrote: "A
house that has a library in it has a
soul." The same must be said of a city
and its library. In Calgary, this speaks
volumes. snohetta.com
"The rawness of the material palette is intended to
give people the sense that the library is a place of
engagement, rather than a sacrosanct repository for books."
-Snøhetta
