Archinect - News

Snøhetta unveils green design for new Westchester Square Library in the Bronx

2022-12-19T16:24:00-05:00

Snøhetta has recently unveiled designs for a new 12,000-square-foot library project in the Bronx’s Westchester Square it says will expand on the diverse neighborhood’s lineage as a “place where knowledge is acquired and shared for generations to come.”

The new building for the New York Public Library (NYPL) branch is sited next to the historic 131-year-old Huntington Free Library, will come wrapped in a pastoral print fritted glass facade in reference to the Bronx’s status as NYC’s greenest borough and target a LEED Platinum certification through an environmental strategy that includes an array of solar panels, rainwater recycling, a high-performance envelope, and slate of energy conservation measures.

Its two-story interior is organized around a need for natural light in educational spaces and the desire to frame a street-level exterior Viewing Garden that serves as a “counterpoint to the surrounding urban landscape” while adding “visual interest to the indoor experience.”

Image co...

The new Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library opens in the heart of Midtown Manhattan

2021-06-04T12:55:00-04:00

A transformed Midtown Manhattan library building, long considered to be an eyesore, is finally open to the public after the Covid-19 pandemic and a $200 million renovation project left its doors shuttered for four years.

Renamed the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library, what used to be the New York Public Library’s Mid-Manhattan branch, the facility sits on a corner of Fifth Avenue opposite the library’s flagship Stephen A. Schwarzman Building in a former department store. According to the 126-year-old institution, the SASB sees a system-topping 1.7 million visitors a year.

Beyer Blinder Belle teamed with acclaimed library restorationist Francine Houben of the Dutch firm Mecanoo to completely overhaul all eight floors of the Bryant Park building thanks in part to a $55 million grant from the Niarchos Foundation.

Photo: John Bartelstone

The resulting 20,000 square feet of added space come in the form of expanded reading areas separated on three floors by a linea...

"Georectification," historical urban photography, and archiving Foursquare check-ins: Inside the New York City's "urban memory infrastructure" bank

2019-08-06T09:06:00-04:00

In 2011, the New York Public Library established an official unit for digital experimentation—NYPL Labs. Over the six years that followed, what began as a small research and development outfit for special digital projects grew into a visionary think-and-do tank for making the library’s two centuries of collections digital and usable for the years to come. A hybrid team of technologists, librarians, and designers would start to assemble the building blocks of an urban memory infrastructure.

Shannon Mattern, associate professor of media studies at The New School, and Ben Vershbow, founder of NYPL Labs, discuss the recent digitalization efforts undertaken by the New York Public Library system as it works to turn the library's "vast collections into usable data, connecting maps, photographs, menus and community memories, NYPL Labs created a series of multilayered projects that point the way to a new information ecosystem."

In this fascinating and thought-provoking conversation, Mattern and Vershbow touch on the library's efforts to stitch together insurance maps to create scrollable, Google Maps-like resources, the NYPL's store of digitized and translated restaurant menus, and the New York City tree census, among many topics.

Describing the fundamental role libraries play in preserving cultural and spatial memories, Vershbow says, "Libraries fill a need for historic preservation, a memory function. And I think that a community without access to its history is sort of li...

The New York Public Library is now loaning out clothing and accessories for job interviews

2018-11-12T17:16:00-05:00

NYPL's Riverside branch has initiated a new program called "Grow Up Work Fashion Library", loaning neckties, briefcases and handbags to assist library members in their job search. The items may also be loaned out for formal occasions, with the only requirement being that that the member owe less than $15 in overdue fines.

The program was spearheaded by Michelle Lee, a young adult librarian at the branch, who has noticed a number of the people she worked with could not afford these items.

NYPL reveals first image for its $200M Mid-Manhattan Library renovation

2016-11-17T14:18:00-05:00

Soon after a major renovation and reopening for the Rose Reading Room at their flagship Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, the NYPL is now moving forward with another mammoth revamp on its Mid-Manhattan Library. The NYPL offers a first look at the overhaul, a project they are calling a “state-of-the-art library that will serve as both a model and catalyst for a rejuvenated library system.”

PHOTOS: After two-year renovation, NYPL's historic Rose Main Reading Room will reopen on October 5th

2016-09-13T09:13:00-04:00

The $12 million project, managed by Tishman Construction Corporation, came about in May 2014 when an ornamental plaster rosette fell 52 feet from the Reading Room’s ceiling. In addition to recreating and replacing this piece, all 900 rosettes in both rooms were reinforced with steel cables. Other work included the recreation of a 27′ x 33′ James Wall Finn mural on the ceiling of the Catalog Room and the restoration of the chandeliers.

After a two-year restoration, the New York Public Library's historic Rose Main Reading Room and Bill Blass Public Catalog Room will reopen to the public ahead of schedule on Wednesday, October 5th. To mark the occasion, the NYPL has released a series of incredible before-and-after photos.

Reading Room: A Catalog of New York City’s Branch Libraries

2014-11-21T15:07:00-05:00

Between 2008 and 2013, I photographed the branch libraries of New York City’s three public library systems: 212 branches in all[1], spread across the five boroughs. Through arrangements with each of the library systems, I worked mornings before the branches opened to the public. I traveled by subway and bus and made six to twelve pictures of each branch, interiors and exteriors, using a 4×5 inch view camera. My archive, to date, holds over 2,000 negatives.

The Rise and Fall of Manhattan’s Density

2014-10-31T15:18:00-04:00

In 1910, Manhattan reached a peak population of 2.2 million, from which it has never since rebounded, even after modest growth in the past three decades. Angel’s research found that today, Manhattan’s population density is down a surprising 40% from 1910.

Actionable Cartographies

2014-10-24T13:27:00-04:00

Matt Knutzen performs a different kind of public service than Bruce Barrett of the School Construction Authority or Jeffrey Roth of the Fire Department of New York, two recent installments in our Profiles in Public Service series. He works at the New York Public Library, overseeing NYPL’s incomparable collection of maps, and looking for ways to turn items from the library’s vast catalogue into “actionable spatial data.”

New York Public Library Project Reveals Details and Costs of Upgrade Plan

2014-06-02T13:44:00-04:00

The New York Public Library’s revised renovation plan — to upgrade the Mid-Manhattan Library and create more public space in its flagship Fifth Avenue building — is expected to cost about $300 million, according to library officials who outlined new details of the project in interviews. [...] But officials, for the first time, revealed that the original plan, mostly scrapped last month in large part because of questions about the price tag, would actually have cost more than $500 million [...].

Previously

Foster's plans for the NYC Public Library is shelved

2014-05-07T18:17:00-04:00

Several factors contributed to the library’s decision: a study that showed the cost of renovating the 42d Street building to be more than expected (the project had originally been estimated at about $300 million); a change in city government; and input from the public, several trustees said. (Four lawsuits have been filed against the project.)

“Obviously I respect the decision of the trustees and whoever’s been involved in the decision,” Mr. Foster said. “If I have any kind of sadness on the thing — besides obviously not having the project going ahead and having spent a huge amount of passion on the project with colleagues — it is that the proposals have never been revealed, and there hasn’t really been a debate by those involved, including those who would have benefitted from an inclusive approach to the library.”

Too Late, Community Mobilizes to Save Central Park from Skyscraper Shadows

2014-02-20T15:00:00-05:00

Last night, nearly 500 New Yorkers gathered at the New York Public Library’s main branch for a forum on the wave of skyscrapers that are rising along the Southern edge of Central Park. Skyscrapers that will, depending on whom you ask, either transform Central Park into a gloomy airshaft or create shadows as fleeting and insubstantial as a cloud moving across the sun. Concerns were raised, grievances aired and oligarchs denigrated.

Flying a Drone around The NY Public Library

2013-11-06T13:33:00-05:00

Shot with the full cooperation of nypl.org and their rad labs team. Seems like most likely the first drone ever flown inside the NY Public Library.

In Renderings for a Library Landmark, Stacks of Questions, Still

2013-01-30T12:05:00-05:00

The value of an institution isn’t measured in public square feet. But its value can be devalued by bad architecture...The designs have all the elegance and distinction of a suburban mall. I was reminded that Mr. Foster is also responsible for the canopied enclosure of the inner court at the British Museum, a pompous waste of public space that inserts a shopping gallery into the heart of a sublime cultural institution.

N.Y. Public Library, Norman Foster Evict a Million Books

2012-12-19T12:20:00-05:00

A $300 million renovation of the New York Public Library’s ornate marble palace in midtown Manhattan will start by evicting 1.2 million books. The plan, unveiled today and overseen by the London firm of Foster & Partners, keeps more books onsite than had been suggested in earlier proposals. Books will be stored in space under Bryant Park and in a Princeton, New Jersey, facility.

What lies behind the battle over the New York Public Library

2012-07-09T12:25:00-04:00

The hottest cultural controversy of this already hot summer concerns the New York Public Library (NYPL), and a plan to disembowel its main building – a plan that will slice open the stacks and "replace books with people", in the words of the NYPL system's CEO, Tony Marx. It's enraged writers and professors, demoralized a staff already coping with layoffs, and called the entire purpose of the system into question.