Central Atlanta Library: debate over adding windows to 'dark' Marcel Breuer building

2018-05-14T14:50:00-04:00

Drilling holes—for windows, granted—into famed architect Marcel Breuer’s final project could cost $1 million, and preservationists are peeved such plans are still on the drafting board. But despite community pushback, the window plans are still very much alive. Tuesday night, a crowd again convened at downtown’s Central Atlanta Library, a Breuer-designed Brutalist building, to argue against aspects of the $50 million plan to renovate the 38-year-old structure.

Current state of the Atlanta-Fulton Central Library building. Photo: Aleksandr Zykov/Flickr.

To drill or not to drill—that's at the center of a heated debate between the Atlanta–Fulton Public Library System, who would like to see additional windows to bring some natural light into their aging Marcel Breuer-designed Central Atlanta Library building, and preservationists, who insist that the concrete shell of the brutalist structure from 1980 must not be altered.

"What we’ve always heard about this building is it’s dark; it’s dingy; it’s dank, and the windows are a way to enliven this," Atlanta library director Gabriel Morley said about the building that once faced demolition not too long ago. "It’s a way to bring some inside out and some outside in."

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Central Atlanta Library: debate over adding windows to 'dark' Marcel Breuer building