Central Atlanta Library's controversial redo is almost finished. Is it really so bad? (restaurants)

[LynnHarris1]

Spared from a potential demolition in 2016, the late work by master Brutalist architect Marcel Breuer that is Central Atlanta Library has nearly finished an extensive renovation project that was embroiled in preservationist controversy for years.

Which begs the question: Was all the fuss justified?

https://urbanize.city/atlanta/post/c...ism-renovation

SOURCE: Josh Green/Urbanize Atlanta

[arjay57]

I like the renovations. They've added some much needed light, while keeping the building intact.

Unless the setting is appropriate, Brutalist architecture runs the risk of just being a boring concrete pile. Since the options for changing the setting were limited in this case, the modifications were appropriate and beneficial.

[bryantm3]

I don't know... There aren't any pictures of the inside since the remodel

[Mutiny77]

From the outside, it turned out nicely IMO.

[cwkimbro]

Well it certainly looks better. If that caused it to be less architecturally accurate, so be it.


I still wish the building was replaced with a more traditional building that would be found in an earlier American urban area, more like the original Carnegie Library that use to sit there.

[Smocaine]

Atlanta is painfully lacking in good, public places to spend time that have a decent view. The library is solid and they do a decent enough job keeping the homeless behaved in there so it's a viable hangout spot and then...they make it a windowless concrete dome. Atlanta can worry about architectural purity when the city has something besides office buildings and restaurants IMO.



Georgia Tech's library has stunning skyline views and was a great place to hang out, it's criminal that there's zero equivalent in the city.