The Atlanta Library (Downtown) (Marietta, Stone Mountain: hotels, restaurant, shop)

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by RandyWatson13

I agree where it is doesn't help it at all, you barely notice it. There is now a Cafe INtermezzo across the st.....

It is a bad location other than being near a MARTA rail station. If it were in a grassy lot with some trees, one could at least be able to take in the building as work of art. There seems to be a consensus that the AFCL building, with all that windowless concrete, is almost indistinguishable from the surrounding parking decks.

We DO NOT need to spend tax money on a pretty library when everything is online anyway

Good question. We at least need fewer libraries. They can function as community centers as well as a library. Most university libraries function now as study halls, student group meeting places, and general academic support. But I think there still needs to be a Central library and should be a trophy building.

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I like both traditional and modern forms for libraries. I wouldn't even rule out Brutalism altogether though it would certainly be near the bottom of my list.

However, buildings function as an element of their surroundings. A blocky, windowless concrete structure typically evokes a parking deck. That is especially so when it is wedged into a small lot surrounded by actual concrete parking decks.

JPD's idea of painting is intriguing. I'm not an artist at all but some color would help display the building's planes.

I wonder if the preservationists would have a cow over that. An aspect of Brutalism is the concrete look. Painting it like that might compromise the intention by overlaying another form of modern art on it.

Sort of like serving a Cabernet Sauvignon with fish. The horror!

But it would at least brighten up that dreary area.

[MathmanMathman]

Originally Posted by JPD

How does that design reject or question reason? A very high degree of human intellect was required in order to design, engineer and build that buiilding.

Buildings like the Philadelphia library don't get built anymore. I'd rather have something modern than a cheap knock-off of an old stone building.

But its look belies any engineering feat. A classical look like the old Carnegie Library is the right idea. Its ornamental style is intellectually uplifting and embraces order while Brutalism is somewhat primitive, stark, and in other forms repetitive. This and other buildings try to defy gravity as an attempt to defy nature's law. Rejecting science with a "trompe l'Å“il". It's about as banal as Soviet architecture only with a nightmarish twist.

I just don't think Brutalism is a fitting architecture for a library.

[PedestriAnne]

Originally Posted by RandyWatson13

We DO NOT need to spend tax money on a pretty library when everything is online anyway

Everything is not online. Not even close.


I go to the central AFPL about once a month, and every time I'm there I think how much more appealing it would be if it wasn't wedged into that canyon of other buildings. If the parking deck to the south was gone and the hotel to the east was where the parking deck is, making the library visible straight-on from Peachtree, that would be a big improvement.

There's no reason Brutalism can't work for a library or other public building, as long as due consideration is given to the purpose for which it's is going to be used. From the outside, the central AFPL looks like a building for archiving things and keeping them safe from exposure, not a place where things are going to be shared by and circulated in the community, or where people are going to sit and read.

Going there would be a vastly different experience if Breuer had incorporated much more natural light into the design, like Pereira did with the Geisel library. As it is, the space somehow manages to feel vacant and confining at the same time. It makes you want to find what you're looking for, get it and leave.

Did anyone see the winning entries from the AIA Young Architects Forum's 48 Hours Competition a couple of years ago, when the challenge was to redesign the library's facade and circulation area?

[cwlawrence]

Originally Posted by MathmanMathman

I wonder if the preservationists would have a cow over that.

Well, the DOCOMOMO folks might.

Funny that no one has suggested tearing down the ugly parking garages... how about we do that first, and see how that goes?

[Iconographer]

Originally Posted by cwlawrence

Well, the DOCOMOMO folks might.

Funny that no one has suggested tearing down the ugly parking garages... how about we do that first, and see how that goes?

Agreed. I wouldn't mind seeing parking garages (and lots) disappear altogether. I suppose that they're just a necessary evil in this town.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cwlawrence

Funny that no one has suggested tearing down the ugly parking garages... how about we do that first, and see how that goes?

Unfortunately some of those parking decks are pretty profitable. The cost to buy them and tear them down might exceed the cost of building a new library somewhere else.

[arjay57]

Originally Posted by cwlawrence

Well, the DOCOMOMO folks might.

I don't always agree with the Docomomo folks but I will have to give them credit for campaigning to save the Firestone Auto Service building at Peachtree and 11th. Talk about a classic!

Peachtree St at 11th Street #3

[RoslynHolcomb]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I don't always agree with the Docomomo folks but I will have to give them credit for campaigning to save the Firestone Auto Service building at Peachtree and 11th. Talk about a classic!

Peachtree St at 11th Street #3

It's a cool looking building, but what on earth do you do with it?

As for the library, I'm not a fan of Brutalism either, but I don't think this building is particularly bad, just poorly located. Too bad they didn't go for underground parking or something like that, because it does need to stand out from its surroundings more. I like the way it looks with the color on it, but considering that it's the antithesis of Brutalism it won't fly.

[HometoGeorgia]

Originally Posted by arjay57

I don't always agree with the Docomomo folks but I will have to give them credit for campaigning to save the Firestone Auto Service building at Peachtree and 11th. Talk about a classic!

Peachtree St at 11th Street #3

This is kind of off subject, but those are trolley electrical lines in the older picture, I never knew Atlanta had them; they are all over many of the west coast cities because they pollute less and climb hills with ease, but obviously Atlanta chose to get rid of them. Shame.