bothands, looking at your favorites list...i really like origami. it's one of the better 'tilted plaza' schemes i've seen. looking a little closer at it i wish the section and plan allowed a more dramatic use of spaces underneath that sliced membrane roof plane. the model axonometric exposes this limitation. it seems locked into being a series of stadium trays.
in this sense (although i doubt all the program fits) i think the best version of that massing type is
the roof, while not as traversible, has the advantage of bathing those rooms with north light. it exhibits alot of skill.
there are some real unmemorable schemes in that list however, many which exhibit the yawn inspiring three annexes plus a sunken back portion solution. cylindrical voids also seem to be making quite a cameo in more than a few.
and one or two videogame advertisements including one which competes with that xref or xamfir or xbox or whatever pile thing there:
0001 - 798177
in which zaha is repackaged with different wallpaper to become what the world has been waiting for for thousands of years: ZAHA WITH DIFFERENT WALLPAPER!
hi all,
Just found the discussion via google, and besides a few other sites, very few people are discussing the topic over the net right now... so i thought i'd pay a visit, and my share of how i see it too...
I downloaded and saw all projects ( yes give me a medal took me ages)
There is so many projects, they will have to use really on/off criteria tools in order to really shorten the list... not sure how the 24 name shortlist came out ( i always like rumor stuff its usually funny)...but to go down to it in barely one month, it would imply so many working hours checking each project that its unmakable.
If i were to judge such a big amount of project, i'd split the projects between the jury members, and ask them for a first raw filter > aka eliminate the really bad stuff ( and there is plenty)... I've done the same and my bad to very bad folder ( we did it as three architects team) has almost 500 projects ( 40% more or less)
Then they can maybe do meetings, use a projector and go through the rest...
I have around 25 projects in my short list, and they are all very different urbanwise, and mass plan wise... which implies the jury will have to use arbitrary criteria as well ( aka: do we eliminate projects that touch asplund or not? Do we keep projects that are deep in the hill or not etc..)
I am, beeing a french architect, not persuaded blob, organic architecture which is very far on the renders to be buildable has any chance here, so would not put them on the list, anyway here is some taken from my fav / winable folder!:
- 0833 cloud+deck > love it
- 0808 kamelont
- 0055 origami
- 0736 r14
- 0812 silent hill
- 0412 aaib
- 0319 iconoclash
- 0358 yellow > impressive
- 1004 zigzag
- 1062 the discovery of the death mask...( name kills !)
- 0982 stockholm garden library
- 0241 under standing media
- 0250 1923 mh
- 0395 overbooking
- 0419 0z
- 0440 Neo Geo
- 0480 the space between us
- 0510 the space between
- 0562 mount media
- 0603 rheos
- 0605 aspire
- 0667 s4r4 m4go
- 0752 the urban ark
- 0761 urban forest
- 0763 trivium
- 0784 stockholm city library
- 0847 proposal for the asplund stockholm city library
- 0937 2d 4d
- 0938 3lab
- 0952 triad
- 1055 479341
some i love the renders, some i think would have been better with better renders...
any comments or news from the jury ( hush hush ;)???
N.
ps: for the fun : my fav "homemade" project ever:
0745 - a reading room in the sky
there are way too many schemes that make the connection between the hill and library, and/or street, the major focus of their proposal.
there are many things to consider with this complex urban architecture. what is major? what is less important? interior MUST work.The entry that strikes the right balance ought to be the winner; otherwise this is a joke competition, which it seems to be anyway, looking at all the joke submittals.
Remember this: when you can't "do it", you turn to comedy -- even Rem, Hadid, and the like do this.
These are good:
-- extending the esker
-- open book
-- publik
--cut
--forgot name -- Some Blue glass, 4th annex, tall freestanding mass entry -- very beautiful
-- neo geo -- very successful because height of massing matches that of asplund's library -- good move!
--civic magnet
-- there are many other good ones // many, many other bad ones.
These are great. (however, I did not look at all pdf's too time consuming. . .PDF? Why? JPEG's, that's the way the online expo would of worked)
-- interstitial readings -- great scheme
-- forgot name -- brown metal looking, roof deck, with one annex free standing -- great form
-- cityscape of knowledge(???) -- great scheme -- book system works
"Extending the Esker" illustrates the problem with schemes that keep the annex buildings quite well. The floors of the existing annexes do not align! So you have stairs at every annex building on every floor. That is a circulation and organizational nightmare. The very definition of an interior that does not work. Are there any schemes that have kept the annex building and solved this problem?
David,
I think cloud deck ( entry 833) solves the issue by making new levels inside the annexes...
I personnaly think the annexes weren't of interest so did not keep them anyway.
Its funny to see how Namericans and euro architects react to such demand : aka vague program.
I think personnaly all open books, objects related or morpho stuff have not a single chance since its too first degree, and usually student stuff.
I have noticed that there is basically 5-6 family of projects, and the question i'm asking myself is will the jury pick a few in each, or favor one family?
- triangular occupation of the site: leaves a good part of plazza between public building and library.. downside is the plazza is mostly north oriented so catches big shadows of the building ( despite fake sun shadows on some of the renders ;). This solution solves one of the main issue of the site: the shortcut from the railway station to the other street, leaving the asplund building as an island between paths. I like the S like solution with a glass facade using this solution.
-Keep all annexes and occupy the hill and make a slope going to the street between the annexes. Some good solutions, but i can't figure out how the thing is suppose to work in terms of flows...ALso am not convinced they are willing to dig "mines" into the hill..
- Not touching the hill solutions: i think some of them are interesting, but it usually ends with a huge block on the site, no entrance plazza etc... Some pastiche entries are sooooo " kazakhstan concrete style" that it is a bit heavy urbanwise ( symetries of everything, pastiche of asplund's rotunda etc..)
- towers: ok on paper, but how are flows suppose to work in there?
- ramps: quite a bunch of smart solutions to link hill and street, with the building under it, or part of it. I'm not convinced people will just be using that ramp so much ( how is the handicapped people suppose to use 20% ramps too.?.), and that a whole building design can be based on hypotetical urban flows ( if there was a huge interest for people to go on the hill besides walking the dog or flirting, it would be different).
- keep the last annexe and built in between: how is the program supposed to fit in there without beeing too shrinked...? haven't seen any interesting stuff solving the issue. What is strange is the poor link most of these projects have with asplund... as if it is quarantined... I'm not sure an extension can be done with a building with a simple 2-3m wide tunnel linking both...!
Another intersting thing ( and i'm with elisa's comment on this) is the fascinating use of computers to do what is suppose to be called architecture...Is a project that looks like a bicycle helmet architecture?
Big projects/cities with budgets are now all in the bilbao syndrome: a spaceship craft landed, and it brings people in your city. Is a non conventionnal shape necessarely XXIst century architecture as it pretends to be...?
I think the debate is open, but to my opinion architecture is not just the look of things, but how they solve problems and answer questions... not creating new issues or tremendous costs for the society ( how is "global illumination" project supposed to be build / maintained..?).. Does a building has to look trendy in terms of textures and forms to be a good building? Some people like Chipperfied or Souto de Moura among others think not, and i tend to think they are right. Gehry and the "spaceship sculptures" is fine when its not generalized in every place, as answers for all different themes. Cloning bilbao everywhere will only lead to poverty of thinking, cities are not meant to receive objects that will lead to Tschumi folies concept, with network and flows in between. I see it more as a continuum of constructed space, not as a grid.
Looking at extending the esker more, I think that this is a great one. In response to David's post, the flow is not "sweeping", however, there can be a flow that is about movement / views that has "stop and go". All this could be better, in my view, however, with ramps in lieu of steps -- wide ramps -- slim ramps and steps -- who knows; Or, remove the floors and start new, making "sweeping" connetions.
This proposal could be re worked to get it right. The connection to the Asplund library is on point. The way the project engages the hill is a winning move. The plaza at the street / entry works. I will not make comments on what I feel is wrong.
What I like most, is that I sense that this entry has a team of talented people. People who can see space. Why couldn't entrants solve the problem of using the Annexes? Just follow the guidelines; it's obvious that the jury wants to see the preservation of the Annex buildings.
It would be a great thing if you guys could let me know which proposals used the annexes well.
i'm not sure the fact that the jury wants to preserve the annexes is obvious... it think they are totally unsure of what to do with them, and if its a good idea to keep or destroy them. Hence the competition as a response to this question among others...
I'm not sure if you're familiar with competitions ( not a critic!), but i've seen / been part of so many teams that were overulled by good projects that were off bounds slightly that i am now more pragmatic.
A good answer is an answer that offers more than just a response to guidelines. The thin border between what is acceptable or not is what makes a winning project or not. If you check carefully the work of Jean Nouvel, and how he answered the programmatic answers to various national programs, you'd see he often went off bounds, not too much, but enough to have his project noticed, have the jury wonder, and win. Sometimes this politic leads to direct rejection, but if there is 1100 projects, its not idiotic to decide to remove the annexes, especially if you think the project could be better without, like many did....
As for 0600 - esker, there is many projects like it, and i'm not sure its among the best...plans are unreadable among other stuff ( is that 1/500th?)..Digging so much the hill will not get a winning project i'm afraid..It creates a huge north facade and it will be dark 7 months a year... in a freezing country!
oops my mistake there is another esker ;)
ok 0972 - extending the esker is yours!
wayyyy more interesting! but not my thing...too complex planwise to allow for good flows... also the street facade is relatively poor for such a program, and the plazza it leaves is not really fascinating. I think interior views are more interesting, although they show an interior that could be anywhere in the world.. Not very site related view.
N.
I guess I wasn't clear. I was referring to the schemes that fill in between the annexes down to the street level. I just don't see ramping, stepping, or blowing out the annex floors working when considering the importance of organizational clarity and wheelchair accessibility.
Cloud deck is interesting. At first glance I thought it was really clever to build over the top of the annex, but ultimately I think it is too disconnected from the street, too internally focused.
My interpretation of the competition brief is that the library's big goal is to open the complex up to the the public. The original building is so introverted. They seem to want a new public face and entrance. Also, I think the new public program elements (24hr news zone, learning zone, auditoriums, class rooms, etc.) need to be accessible to the street.
Indeed, I'm reading between the lines RE: keeping the annexes.
And how do I derive this sense???
I relate the guidelines statement: ". . . Concept strong enough to withstand a dynamic implementation process. . ." to Raphael Meneo's struggle to achieve his design with his Stockholm museum. In the end, politicians chose the brown colored stucco when Meneo was adamant about using yellow -- he was quite disappointed with his Stockholm experience. Each competition in its own thing. Is this one about being sensitive to the existing buildings and context? I strongly belive this is what the jury envisions.
thanks Nils for linking me to this forum on the Asplund design competition.
I was at the seminar beginning of the year in Stockholm and I heard some clearly outspoken wishes there about the dream the organisers have in mind:
1 a masterpiece would be welcomed as an alternative for the annexes.
2 the view on the existing commercial highrise would be a good thing to obscure.
3 the new buidling should be one with the old asplund and should draw the crowds they are looking for by the thousands mostly from the direction of Odenplan.
4 Seattle and its livingroom approach is the new "thing" is the library world and for good reason. Every one I personely spoke who has been in Seattle speaks of a dream library never seen before. The exterior seems not speak to most but the interior surely does.
5 world class is the keyword in Stockholm and the organisers seem very capable to seperate the more "local library buildings" from the truly world class buildings.
I don't see so much world class in the submissions. Most are way to small to be of world class. The Stockholm library is a bit out of the main stream Stockholm center area and therefore to attract new and large quantities of visitors there is the need for a new landmark of very modern and appealing qualities big enough to provide space for meditation and empowerment of the existing site. I can hardly imagine the staff of the new library hide under parklevel leaving the grand views over Stockholm to their neighbor, the existing commercial building. I can also not believe they are going to keep the annexes looking at the horrible interiors they provide right now especially keeping in mind the organisers have seen some remarkeble libraries around the world like the Seattle one.
I can also not imagine a tiny bridge or underground passway as a truly convincing way to unite new and old.
I have been reading a bit on Asplund and what others have to say about him, he seems to be a god in Scandinavia. That alone means all submissions that alter or change the Asplund building in any way beyond area 2 are going to be piled up as useless.
I also see many submissions trying to stay low preferably under the square volume of Asplunds building. This leaves many designs with large florareas with low ceilings not usually seen in world class buildings. I suppose this is due to most young designers having little experience with big buildings and spaces.
Here are some of my favorites although they miss worldclass as well I feel they are great designs for the site.
2 squares
down the rabiithole
janus
oasis
malmash6
I am afraid my submission is rather invisable, at least among 1100. I loved to take part in this competition especially since the organisers exposed all submisions before they came to their conclusions. For a while we could all feel like winnars. I am impressed by the organisers and wish them luck with all these submissions. I wish all competitions where organised like this. Sadly I have had my share of looking at just the winnars on the web announced months later without any chance of seeing the "loosers". Helsingor was such a competition I thought was such a dissappointment. All I saw from that one was two perspectives of nr. 1 and 2.
my feelings on the outcome of the first stage is that the jury will be very forgiving for the concept and details as long the submission is appealing and sensitive with its surroundings, in the second stage the final design can worked out to fit the program and constraint of the site.
Submissions that are very elaborate give more reasons for doubt and less reason for wanting to see a further development in the second stage.
The best concept I have seen sofar is the one that put the whole new extension underground under the library square pond. Obviously no landmark but still a great thought.
It's an eye-opener for me seeing the amount of time and energy that must have gone into all these entries and all the time and thought that you guys are putting into looking at the entries. One would expect opinionated soundbites (cynic-moi) but instead these are sober, considered reflections upon the schemes. Personally, I have neither the energy nor the inclination right now to take part in either aspect of this endeavour, but it's interesting to know you guys are out there...
just found 1038-gardens of connectivity
love this plan, also not a winnar as it is totally beyond the bouderies of the site I feel it is a great way to use the park. sometimes I think the site (area 2) is way to small to be of world class so close to Asplund.
Let's see if I can construct an argument for narrowing the choices. In the competition brief, it states they intend to increase the numbers of media available for check-out, while creating social and learning spaces. Larger, efficient floor plates would make sense given the relatively small budget of about $100M US +/- ($1 ~ 7 SEK). The Patkau library in Canada would probably be more economically equivalent to the stated budget, as I understand costs are higher in Sweden for materials, labor, health, etc.. Seattle is way out of their budget. If it is accepted that the budget is fixed at the above amount, a grand morrphing scheme is likely to be honored if beautiful, but probably cannot win the commission.
Every society has historical advocates, and Stockholm is quite vigilant about its cultural heritage. I cannot imagine a staff person at the library having great love for the annex buildings, due to the up and down of stairs, inefficient floors, separation of subject areas. THe floors do not align from one building to the next, and are terribly low floor to floor. They must be managment nightmares. It appears that historical advocates have influenced the competition enough to at least pay lip service to the preservation of the annexes.
The rest is politics, and a good image to sell. I can see an argument to keep the annex #1 to appease the advocates, the one farthest from the main library that is, and some schemes do recognize this. Keeping annex #1 gives a political win to preservationists, and allows for a fairly large area of contemporary architecture. Therefore, the winning scheme will keep one annex and be more conventional than ethereal.
Now it would be interesting to sort the projects by:
Annex #1
Annex #1 and #2
All annexes kept
Complete reconstruction
Other
ascension, thats a pretty thoughtful argument based on a number of pragmatic, quantifiable exigencies which might have guided the decisionmaking on past competitions such as this. i'm just as sure those parameters will be compelling factors which determine who and what wins this one.
however what are the less explicit, unempirical, perhaps less savory, and certainly ideological motivations which will be at play here? i don't want to operate on pure conjecture, but here are some guesses (based on absolutely nothing of substance) what a few of these unstated decisionmaking prerogatives might be:
1. "our city's got seoul": the proposition that as a civic expression of progress-affirmation, certain cities which are deathly afraid of being labeled culturally backwater (like seoul), express the frenetic desire to show the world it can boast avante garde architecture. if this is an itch stockholm wants to scratch, then certain schemes will be seen as lacking avant credentials and won't make the cut.
2. "back off our asplund": if stockholmites love the existing buildings as much as they claim in the brief, it seems counterintuitive that the guy from snohetta and that guy named caruso would be the signature outside jurors invited. i know they're not considered radical, but i assume that their demonstrated aloofness towrd historical context, as well as their youth, was meant to serve as a healthy counterweight to the old fogies and local operationalist goons on the jury. so someone's setting up a fight. (btw, full disclosure: i like operationalist goons.)
3. "lets sell the image to raise more money" or "hip hip hooray": the proposition that something different can ignite enough media excitement and just enough civic controversy to raise enough interest from the right people to open up their pocketbooks. this happens all the time in the u.s. if i were the politico charged with getting this extension realized and determined that the budget aint gonna get a monument to 21st century stockholm built, i'd ask myself what can get this new library some more notoriety, more attention, and therefore more money? i would answer back to myself - ask the young architects on the jury what is hip. listen to them. and make it so. sadly that's the right thing to do.
i'd love to be a fly on the wall on this jury. not only because i really have no idea what goes on in these things, but because, as ascension points out, the brief is so clearly schizophrenic about wanting preservation. but also that newly minted, seattle-esque cachet of hip.
it'll be interesting to me to see this unfold for this reason. oh and also because i'm competing.
There would be a lot of flies on the wall if that was possible...lol.
I have been in a few competitions the past few years and I have seen winning designs follow the guidelines carefully, being very low profile and simple to understand and rather invisable from a form or design point of view. There is a saying that a giraffe is a horse designed by a commitee. And I must say I have seen a few giraffes win as if they where Arabian full-bloods. Organisers and juries are commitees after all. The teams that came up with very risky designs are usually quickly recognised as very inexperienced. A good jury will give the organisers what they want most.....an internationally recognized master architect. You don't need a corrupt jury to seperate the beginners from the old masters. Once that process is finished you are left with about 20-40 plans. The rest is for refreshing ideas to use by the winnars in the second stage. If you study previous competitions you could say that to win a competition you should draw as little as possible and make your plan as easily recognisable as possible. Obviously you should always approach the competition in a very business like way, as if you had to give yourself points for all aspects the competition brief mentioned as important. The winnars will have a high score on that list. Not just a very high score on some of the aspects.
The difficult part in this competition is it has two stages. So the jury might be tempted to choose some designs that act as a counterweight on more traditional approuches. I am sure though that the choosen design in the end is the one that gives the least risk of problems, of any kind, the budget, the preservationists, and the existing library.
One thing is different in library designs though, the well know traditional library is dead, especially looking at Asplund. The real task is here to make a landmark, a new center where cultural life will florish and come to life, a place where there is lots more to do that just books or screens. Thats the great value of Seattle. The new library regardless of who will win must answer to this new trend otherwise it will be just more space added to the disfunctional Asplund as it is now. The existing Asplund and its annexes today are the opposite of the succes of Seattle. I am sure the jury and the organisers are very aware of this situation. Most of my friends who have visited Canada recently have gone out of their way to see the Seattle Library while none of my friends who have been in Stockholm over the past 20 years have been at the Asplund Library. You can not make a hole in the park or give the annexes a face-lift to change that.
I realize that this post may bring the discussion slightly off topic, but I have to disagree with the premise that the Seattle Library has been a success. Having visited this much talked about building I was astounded at the lack of quality throughout the complex, both in terms of the architectural concept and in terms of the materials and workmanship. While we can all admire the audacity of Rem and his cohort, and appreciate their irreverent take on the contemporary architectural "scene", still they were called upon to create an enduring functional building which Seattle-ites could love and relate to. This they have fallen far short of. Many people who live in that city (whose taxes built the library) are completely mystified at the praise which is being heaped on this mis-begotten pile.
Filver, I don't agree that the "traditional library is dead." Tho' it's true that this notion has been a starting point for the brief in the Stockholm competition, my own home town has a "traditional" library (of similar vintage as Asplund) that successfully carries out its mission and is a center of civic life here.
In surfing around the net prior to starting work on my entry, I was interested to read about some of the jury members and their place in Stockholm politics and culture. Many of these people it's true do apparently look to Seattle as a model, including the Finnish librarian on the jury. But I would say that they represent only a segment of society. The library will be a building for all of Stockholm. I would imagine that there's a plurality of potential users who would find a scheme in the Rem vein offensive and unworkable for their city. Witness Oslo currently. It will be interesting to see how the "forward-looking" bunch have to accommodate other more conservative viewpoints, and how this affects the eventual decision of the jury.
very interesting to see a different view on the Seattle library. I know Rem Koolhaas his work here in the Netherlands and also see and feel the way you describe your feelings about the quality of his work. Often it is lacking and often by me as well it leaves me wondering what all the praise is about. I must admit though that the Seattle Library makes a good impression on me as well as on my friends who have been there although only for a day. I think I should have gone there myself as well as to a few other internationally well known libraries to see. I have been at the Stockholm Library of Asplund and was not really taken by the gloomy, smallish and dark spaces that are present there now. I can imagine the staff looking forward to a whole new concept although keeping the present library alife and well.
I have been looking on the web for more discussion on the competition but can hardly find anything in English. 1100 submissions but only a few forums say anything about it.
Mostly because of Asplund I have given Seattle a lot of thought. To me the most striking element in that library is the concept of space as a unifying element, the abundance of space and light to be more precise. It is such a relieve to see this compared to the cramped and to the square meter optimised buldings. I feel that Seattle gives a lot of reason for thought. The in general lack of space can hardly be justified by beautiful architecture or wokmanship. In that way Asplunds library with its architecture and workmanship is a clear proof of that. The world is changing and I have seen examples of how to manage thousands of visitors in Asian malls, huge ones, never seen anything like it here in Europe. I feel that Koolhaas is mostly a very experienced architect especially in big buildings, in Seattle he lectures on space and the new age in where we have to deal with large amounts of people that are gathered or drawn into new buildings.
Looking at many submissions, especially those that keep the annexes I feel that they miss the point, how to handle the latest developments that are moving on in almost all big cities, the concentration of large groups of people once they are attracted to main events or exiting new urban developments as the new Asplund Library is going to be.
The one thing that can be said with certainty about the development of technology is that it is in a perpetual state of evolution. The internet barely existed ten years ago; what revolutionary technologies will be in play ten years or twenty years or fifty years from now? If the Seattle library building aspires to an architectural ideal in sync with global trends, I would say that this aspiration has been realized as a marketing image only. Maybe that's Rem's point--and how clever. But really, why build a library of this type to be less, not more reconfigurable than your average office building? Why design a complicated welded (not bolted) curtain wall, and give the building a shape that makes it impossible to modify in the years to come? Why not design it instead to be added to, or subtracted from, rewired and replumbed, or demounted and recycled with a minium of cost and effort?
In its inflexibility the Seattle library actually has much in common with the Asplund library. At least Aplund's building is honest about its aspiration to monumentality.
Rem's building (oops, Joshua Prince-Ramus' building) will be obsolescent in a few years. Not just because its moment will have come and gone on the worldwide architectural stage, but because it will be full of leaks, its shiny surfaces will be beaten to hell, and most importantly its systems and spaces will be unable to accommodate the next media breakthroughs and technologies. Is this laudable? For that matter the building is probably already obsolescent, just like when you drive your new car off the lot and it's suddenly worth a lot less than what you paid for it, and you watch it slowly fall apart because the engineers planned in a little early obsolescence. Perhaps in this aspect only--that its creators share a mindset with the global market in cheap goods--can it be judged to be an exponent of the age.
I am not saying that the library building type should be the ultimate configurable building. That would only be the case if you start with the premise that the library must contain all of the advances in media technology. On the contrary, I would start from the standpoint that librarians should keep a focus on the book, and the role of the book in modern life. This role has its own progression as the nature of society changes, but I think it's clear that the book will be with us always, in part because it's an elegant technology, a perfect tool for an imperfect species. It fits in the hand, it accomodates our optical outfit, it's portable, it can be smuggled and hidden, it makes it simple to access information. Also, a book needs a physical home, called a library, and people come together in libraries and from this arises community and social rebirth.
I think that it's pointless for the library to try to capture the market in new media; new media is inherently amorphous, there's no point in storing digital content at a library, or going to a library to use it. Librarians aren't going to be able to reinvent themselves quickly enough to avoid being swept down the drain of redundancy if they try to compete in this arena.
Call it a museum of the book if you will. And there's actually quite a bit of improvement needed and a good deal of architectural thought that could be devoted to this limited problem. Display of the book (the average book store does a better job), efficient sorting and storage, open access to shelves, wonderful well-lit reading places, good acoustics, planning for expanding/shrinking collections, planning for the possibility of reconfiguring public spaces, and yes encouraging the life of the city to come inside and participate in the library as a democratic setting for social learning.
There is so much confusion evidenced in the competition entries, following up on all of the confusion in the brief. Who wasn't confused, I certainly was! How do you expect the architect to sift all the new-fangledness if the experts, the librarians aren't able to? There's a basic misunderstanding of the architect's role in the idea that an architect is going to be able to reinvent the library for the librarians. That was another red herring Koolhaas left behind.
Very possible indeed as it is as you explain with all new technologies. But still thousands go to many buildings old and new like the new Gehry's and the old Guadi's. Why not have a very high ambition to make sure that at least in the first ten years the building will the draw the crowds you are looking for.
Well, to get back to the topic here I like 0178 - isbn 0-7148-3976-0-1 a lot. Its one of those truly beautiful plans. If it has the program fully incorperated I am almost convinced it will be the final winnar in the second stage. It scores on almost all point the highest, great combination with the park, fully integrated with the existing Asplund building, most important annex still standing, great square at the entrance, subway well embedded, transportation media and visitors clear, and on the whole a great piece of architecture. The extention is not a landmark though but Asplund is still there of course. Although I have posted here remarks that might want to see a larger and more prominent building I can understand the power of this one very well and the temptation it will have on the jury and the organisers. Its not my plan regretfully but it would be a thrill to be able to make out who is going to win...For now I would put my money on this one. I don't know however how Stockholm deals with snow and glass roofs, not too well I suppose.
PS, I was at the libray by Mecanoo in Delft that was shown at the Stockholm seminar and while I was in Delft bukkets on the floor hinted at the presence and amount of architectural leaks. That Rem's building will leak in time is no surprise to me. I have also seen new and very boring buildings leak.
One good aspect of 0187 isbn is that it does not destroy the all-important axis into the Asplund rotunda from Sveavagen. It looks like you move into the Asplund library from the extension only on the lower levels, then you must travel through it to the east until you can turn 180 degrees to get on the original axis upwards and westwards. Also, the reuse of the lower level below the rotunda is interesting.
Here in the States we have so much vacant urban land leftover from tearing down buildings, where the good buildings still standing look lost because they're surrounded only by parking lots. So I have some qualms about the ground-clearing that is proposed around Asplund.
Is there any hint of the identity of the competitor in the isbn number?
Taking a further look into this plan 0187 I begin to feel again as with so many plans 0187 is also smallish. The program does not seem to have enough air to breath in this concept. Maybe the idea of putting the whole thing under park level and have a free square at the back of Asplund is just a bit too much to ask for. Still I think the people behind 0187 are intelligent people with a good sense of architecture and the site. To think thousand are going to leisurely enjoy modern media here is hard though, it might not have the X-factor they are looking for.
It think the entrance is simply at the level of the rotunda as well as under that level.
Its true that since Asplund has such a clear backside, concepts with more buildup volume in area 2 would do well also.
I think for every concept there are hundreds of plans to prove their right. I found about 3 plans that follow my basic concept. I am happy not to have followed up on some of my ideas looking at the horrible results that others turned out with those. Especially ideas using characters, clocks, books or trees in the textures of the elevations......
I would feel terrible to ruïn a team's chances by disclosing their anonimity in case I would have a clou about their identity.
No I meant that isbn 0714839760 is an actual book! Look it up on Amazon by the isbn #.
I like your argument that a large building is called for. Probably a large building will win it. One with bulk and room enough for "thousands." But I'm sorry that Stockholm will have to say goodbye to those annexes. They are interesting buildings. And probably won't get torn down without a fight. In fact I still can't quite believe that the jury would accept their destruction (no problem with losing the most recent annex though). Having been to Stockholm for the conference, you must feel confident that a big building would sit comfortably on the site.
I think it’s great to mix the Seattle library into this forum. We all must have reviewed the Seattle Library – AND for me -- it is too much like a shopping mall. So, YES to the need for flow and volume, and NO to cheap looking shopping malls, Or a movie theater lobby – Or an extra large Prada store – HA, ha, Ha. The important thing to note is that the Seattle library is not a model for a library, it’s a Library authored by OMA, or the prince, as you rightly state -- a one off. . .Haven’t been, but seems like a cool place for Seattle, for LA, maybe not for Stockholm, or New York for that matter. . .
looking back at some things I learned. . Through an intense study of the programmatic requirements for the modern library, The Prince’s supra-accurate form was created. At a certain point, after prince had worked and reworked the design, no piece could be moved because the functions in relation to daylight, etc. became too locked, resulting in the form we now see, which could no longer be reworked. . .complete bullshit. actuality, completely arbitrary. cute ideas, yes.
At the top floor of the New York City Public Library there is a Great Reading Room (kind-a-like a Living Room, but high brow). It has high, high ceilings, an abundance of natural daylight, the atmosphere is tranquil yet enormous. This Library also features an enormous entrance space, a great lecture hall and, in gen., a well functioning parti. . . wondrous, still today.
I also feel most for a large building with qualities like the NY City Library. Have to say though that among 1100 plans those that are more like the isdn submission look more attractive. I have proposed a very large building and found it difficult to make it look good aside the Asplund. Would need more time and effort to make that work than I could in the realm of the first stage. To be honest, I have no large submissions in my favorite list aother than my own. Probably because I know my own design best and see the architecture in my mind while the jury will have to do with the A1's I provided.
Looking at the submissions I can hardly bring mysef to study submissions that are even a little abstract. I want to see a convincing site with the design clearly put in there otherwise I immediatly zap on to the next one. Would the jury do the same or would they be more willing to spend time studying what the designer is trying to show.
Any other forum members seen something they feel is going to win..
As for the annexes, they are really very bad. I have seen them and especially the interiors don't have anything going for them. The exteriors do nothing for the park or the surrounding buildings or have a lot to say about architecture other than their historic "importance". The annexes where clearly not a typical Asplund design and if Asplund was still around he would be the first to take them down. Obviously there are many in Stockholm that want to keep them fearing the new extension will not have the same charm. That fear is not the best advisor and I think nearly all submission that kept the annexes do so keeping politics in mind. With at least the last annex you will have less of a fight to get all behind your submission. Not a true wold class architectural approach but maybe the most practical.
As for the annexes, they are really very bad. I have seen them and especially the interiors don't have anything going for them. The exteriors do nothing for the park or the surrounding buildings or have a lot to say about architecture other than their historic "importance". The annexes where clearly not a typical Asplund design and if Asplund was still around he would be the first to take them down. Obviously there are many in Stockholm that want to keep them fearing the new extension will not have the same charm. That fear is not the best advisor and I think nearly all submission that kept the annexes do so keeping politics in mind. With at least the last annex you will have less of a fight to get all behind your submission. Not a true wold class architectural approach but maybe the most practical.
Yes, those statements have been on the web since the submissions where in. Its clear they want a Seattle kind of thing. In that respect I can only imagine a large and grand design as the outcome. Still, after studying 1100 submissions they might be going in a totally different direction. Who knows, I felt completely like the statements but after seeing a great deal of the submissions I also like the less world class options with smaller spaces and less high profile designs.
Large building have to suffer in workmanship and detail if built for more or less the same planned budget. Its a matter of choice. However Asian malls usually have a different choice problem. That is the choice about who is going to design the mall, usually in Asia those are not the best designers but the designers closest to the developers families. The weird thing is that these malls are very functional even though they lack any kind of design quality architecturally spoken.
The more I look at the submissions the more I tend to forget my first favorites and come up with new ones. At every download page I find about 3-5 good ones, easy to understand with a clear concep
ISBN, not one of the best. . . I printed it out, however; that means it has certain qualities that caught my attention, and will catch the jury’s attention.
This library seems more like a college campus building -- like a big cafeteria – than a library.
And a lot of the planning is too generic, and armature.
The space is compositional, not conceptually derived, and therefore kind of boring.
The building wants to disappear, but can’t quite get under the pavement. Yes, preservationist’s entertain the “invisible” option ... this is not that though.
The undulating-like, changes in elevation of the glass roof make it look “weak”; a better move would be a flush, continuous plane, or ???. This glass “hill” will become iced up and become the ideal place for filming jackass the movie 3 -- it’s, in other words, a major public danger. A mock hill made of glass?
The idea is not to block Asplund’s Library from view from Odenplan. So, now what, the public sees is that ugly rear façade? The photo montage reveals a funny composition, which makes this vista worse than the current vista.
To descend or ascend, that is the question. Traversing steps up, symbolically suggests leaving the common street level and entering a more dignified place... going down is always a weak move.
The sun must be scooped up in the winter and controlled in the summer. If the roof’s form is determined by a sun study, it’s wrong. Look at what Aalto does with his roofs. In Scandinavia, catching the sun is much desired as the hours of the day 6 months of the year are too short, and the sun’s position is very low in the sky.
Do not like “decorating” the Annex
My--trying to be objective--view of ISBN in sum:
pros: no north shadow/ view up hill; makes connection to underground; creates a new, “powerful” vista of the Asplund library from the Plaza; works out program / shows interior layout as flexable space; saves one Annex; connects with hill; figures out separation of staff, media, visitor flows.
cons: not feasible/cost effective/ logical RE: structural and mechanical; not considerate of the surrounding context; funny relation to Asplund Library; looses points for amateurish planning.
I have not been checking the thread for a while and it is so refreshing to hear some dissenting voices about the Seattle library.
I have not seen it in person so I won't even debate the quality (of lack of quality ) of its construction.
What is puzzling is about the Seattle library is how quick everyone has been to accept it as the perfect model of new library. As if the solution for any public institution that maybe is no longer attracting too many visitors were to make it more similar to a shopping mall or a multiplex theater.
Rem Koolhaas, has made this cynical and sad idea more palatable in the architecture world by embellishing it and dignifying it with his clever propaganda style rhetoric. But why should we accept this model without questioning it? Why should we always go for the lowest common denominator?.
As somebody in the thread mentioned before an OMA-like building is the best way to raise money. But luckily -if i am not mistaken- this project is publicly funded, which means the administration can still make a decision that is not directly affected by big donors and/or market rules. Or at least one would hope.
Also it's true that we cannot foresee how technology will change the way we access and use all kinds of media in the future but isn't good architecture supposed to be timeless? The asplund library which despite all its inefficiencies is still very much loved by the citizens of Stockholm is a good example, and so is the New York public library, as omen pointed out.
I suppose we, as architects, could constantly try to keep up with the latest developments of technology which may or may not affect the way we use our environment, or we could design our buildings as "flexible" boxes (if that is truly possible) so they can accommodate any future change... or we could decide not to fetishize technology and just simply try to make good buildings.
So according to the press release the new library will be Stockholm "living room" , am i reading too much into it or is the author of the article thinking about the Seattle "living room"?.
Indeed, that has become everyone's reference point. But there is still hope at least until the 5 finalists are chosen.
Filver Omen and Shrub what are your favorites apart from ISBN#?
and dappy new year by the way.
I like the idea of reviewing one as we did with ISBN. … I list some favorites in an earlier post.
I think “the sunken garden” is worth looking at. The author(s) seems like some old, purist, modernist type who would get upset if he / she is not chosen, claiming “this new deconstructionist architecture has destroyed our profession”. . .but it’s good enough to review, and easy to understand. Yes, no color???
In sum:
Pros: big ideas – atrium and water wall – determine plan, deal with lite nicely. So, there are “architectural” ideas, not merely compositional; scheme by the hand of an old pro; connection to Asplund library creates a good flow all the wat to entrance; . . . “The entrance is an eye catcher. . .per the brief”
Cons: out of date “brutalism” expression does not relate to the surrounds or the Asplund building; does not preserve annexes; though worked out, very boring spaces – the connection from the Asplund rotunda to the new extension seems “dramatic--less”; don’t let the neatness fool you, his / her loading dock, for one, can’t be achieved as drawn. … let take a look -- www.arkitekt.se/s25904/f3349?skip25556=1000
I have given my favorites before in this thread, down the rabbithole, 2 squares and a few others.
The problem for me is that with 1100 plans I have no time to study all these plans and their floorplans. I just glance at the plans and see that most plans can not hold my attention. I learned a lot in this competition and will do things differently next competion. Its clear to me that if you want to win you must show a clear and sound concept, not complicated, not too architectural in its details and with a strong general appeal. My submission is way to abstract and asks for a very willing mind architecturally although I feel my concepts is the best even seeing about 700 plans till now. My concept is the big building one with a livingroom entrance. It could be a beautiful building but needs serious work in a second stage. So I feel that among 1100 there are lots of plans that cause a lot less friction in the jury.
I was looking for big building concept and find myself wondering why I don't like any of them as proposed by others. The lower, more or less in the hill concepts seem to be much more attractive than most others. For me this is a conflict between the program and what the site might like most.
Has anybody been at the exhibit, I am planning to go there for a day. I think for the big picture you have to be there to see the submissions at real scale. I have a feeling that at the exhibit you will quickly see the winnars or come to a shortlist of about 10 plans.
i like this idea of reviewing projects by pros and cons:
i am going to pick one those that was in Omen's selection, CUT. I actually do like it quite a bit.
PROS:
Very powerful entrance space.
Sinks the building into the hillside while maintaining connection to outside and sunlight (of some sort) at all levels
Potential for beautiful plaza space between new and old building.
maintains the annexes (if we assume that is a pro, but i am not so sure about it)
CONS:
Connections between various buildings and various program parts are too weak and limited.
Circulation withing bu idling is insufficient and there is no attempt at creating a processional way of going from floor to floor or from space to space. the connector piece between new building and asplund is labeled relax area but I imagine it will be a very busy and not so restful zone since it's the only connection between the two buildings.
the plaza and the landscape are too undeveloped, we can only hope something good will be done with them.
Cut has a clear concept, is not too architectural detailed, is not complicated and has a big general appeal. If it is choosen among the five winnars we all would feel symphaty for tat choice. I feel it could actually be one of the winnars also because it is one of the few truly original plans.
So, now the jury has to decide the plan has enough potential to be further developed in a second stage. That would mean:
-a better connection to the Asplund building
-more of a living room kind of space at ground level
-does it really have enough appeal when you render it in real life materials, not orange.
-will the trees on top of the plan survive since the building is actually under the park (far) beyond area 2.
-is it flexible and big enough, it does not look like it.
-the staff in the annexes?? never...can you image to be leading the world class new library and after that have to move over to the worst buildings in Stockholm, ok thats a bit much but after having been at some world class libraries and 1100 submissions you will want to feel like a master and be enjoy it to the fullest. Look at where the staff sits in the Seattle building.....
So the staff has to be relocated in stage 2, does that look possible.
happy new year... been out for a few days and finding those interesting stuff about the library and seattle makes me think 2007 will be of interest!
I mostly agree with filver on most of his ideas on what the jury wanted / etc... that is what i read "between the lines" of the brief.. and tried to answer accordingly.
Regarding seattle as the Icon of modern library. I think Rem's team have come up with an interesting concept, that is appealing in a way, but resumes today's thought toward big buildings: If we don't know the future, but still want to build something: lets make big open floors that will be able to receive different programs, evolutions etc... More and more competitions today, appart from operas and very precise programs are just hulls with a big, wide open megastructure that holds empty floors. Piano/Rodger's Beaubourg project was the first in the serie, and Rem's answer is basically the same stuff ( with much more architectured spaces): Be able to receive loads and loads of visitors with no small rooms so flows are not slowed. ( beaubourg sees 1.5 million people every year !). Rem's project has turned examplary status, as much as bilbao has turned " world class" status in cities: today the world class status means: show off to the others: aka: our country is not a follower but still a leader. This tendency leads to bilbao syndrome ( spaceship projects dropped here and there randomly ), and open space concepts. It might lead at the extreme to very fancy shells with air inside: aka floors but nothing more. I am not sure the tendency is to build liebeskind like museums such as Osnabrück's work since the design is so relative to what program it holds.
Countries are facing two dilemnas: building to last using today's materials and complicated facades ( leaks / lifespan of materials reduced etc..) and how to make buildings adapt to the unknown.. Is the solution in the open space ( aka no decision) or is it in junk buildings that one will be able to destroy and replace every 30-40 years ( japan's trend)..?
As for ISBN 0714839760: i like the plan also, but i'm sceptical about the full north oriented glass roof: it produces a much dug in the hill project, and a relatively small entrance, which should be much bigger to my opinion. The book storing is well taken care off, as well as how to feed the new building and asplund's.
It is the best " slope style" project i've seen.
Filver: let us know how it is at the exhibit, take pics eventually! ;)
i would buy it for a dollar then expect 85 cents back in change.
architects had artist envy for most of last century. then it had historian envy for a period of time. now, thanks to mr koolhaas and ramus we have engineer envy.
as if all we do is solve problems in the most expedient way.
Here is a link to a Swedish blog that has some photos of the exhibition, gives an idea of what the exhibition is like for those of us who can't go to Stockholm . . .
Stockholm Library Comp. Favorites?
bothands, looking at your favorites list...i really like origami. it's one of the better 'tilted plaza' schemes i've seen. looking a little closer at it i wish the section and plan allowed a more dramatic use of spaces underneath that sliced membrane roof plane. the model axonometric exposes this limitation. it seems locked into being a series of stadium trays.
in this sense (although i doubt all the program fits) i think the best version of that massing type is
http://www.arkitekt.se/s25712/f3157?skip25556=500
the roof, while not as traversible, has the advantage of bathing those rooms with north light. it exhibits alot of skill.
there are some real unmemorable schemes in that list however, many which exhibit the yawn inspiring three annexes plus a sunken back portion solution. cylindrical voids also seem to be making quite a cameo in more than a few.
and one or two videogame advertisements including one which competes with that xref or xamfir or xbox or whatever pile thing there:
0001 - 798177
in which zaha is repackaged with different wallpaper to become what the world has been waiting for for thousands of years: ZAHA WITH DIFFERENT WALLPAPER!
For my money, these are the strongest entries of the ones mentioned
plaza/retaining wall options:
r-14 - great sweeping interior space
lending fields- simple, elegant gesture that creates a public space and masks the most unattractive facade of the library
the landform seems to be the best gesture:
0178+-+isbn+0-7148-3976-0- i wish it was more green and less glass, but a nice form and urban response
infinite loop- pretty sure this is BIG. i like the text and the continuous terraced space
media landscapes - one of the best balances of connecting to the existing building, the hill and the urban context.
thatguy - those are good ones, but lending fields and isbn have no interior view -- so is just the exterior gesture enough to go by?
hi all,
Just found the discussion via google, and besides a few other sites, very few people are discussing the topic over the net right now... so i thought i'd pay a visit, and my share of how i see it too...
I downloaded and saw all projects ( yes give me a medal took me ages)
There is so many projects, they will have to use really on/off criteria tools in order to really shorten the list... not sure how the 24 name shortlist came out ( i always like rumor stuff its usually funny)...but to go down to it in barely one month, it would imply so many working hours checking each project that its unmakable.
If i were to judge such a big amount of project, i'd split the projects between the jury members, and ask them for a first raw filter > aka eliminate the really bad stuff ( and there is plenty)... I've done the same and my bad to very bad folder ( we did it as three architects team) has almost 500 projects ( 40% more or less)
Then they can maybe do meetings, use a projector and go through the rest...
I have around 25 projects in my short list, and they are all very different urbanwise, and mass plan wise... which implies the jury will have to use arbitrary criteria as well ( aka: do we eliminate projects that touch asplund or not? Do we keep projects that are deep in the hill or not etc..)
I am, beeing a french architect, not persuaded blob, organic architecture which is very far on the renders to be buildable has any chance here, so would not put them on the list, anyway here is some taken from my fav / winable folder!:
- 0833 cloud+deck > love it
- 0808 kamelont
- 0055 origami
- 0736 r14
- 0812 silent hill
- 0412 aaib
- 0319 iconoclash
- 0358 yellow > impressive
- 1004 zigzag
- 1062 the discovery of the death mask...( name kills !)
- 0982 stockholm garden library
- 0241 under standing media
- 0250 1923 mh
- 0395 overbooking
- 0419 0z
- 0440 Neo Geo
- 0480 the space between us
- 0510 the space between
- 0562 mount media
- 0603 rheos
- 0605 aspire
- 0667 s4r4 m4go
- 0752 the urban ark
- 0761 urban forest
- 0763 trivium
- 0784 stockholm city library
- 0847 proposal for the asplund stockholm city library
- 0937 2d 4d
- 0938 3lab
- 0952 triad
- 1055 479341
some i love the renders, some i think would have been better with better renders...
any comments or news from the jury ( hush hush ;)???
N.
ps: for the fun : my fav "homemade" project ever:
0745 - a reading room in the sky
there are way too many schemes that make the connection between the hill and library, and/or street, the major focus of their proposal.
there are many things to consider with this complex urban architecture. what is major? what is less important? interior MUST work.The entry that strikes the right balance ought to be the winner; otherwise this is a joke competition, which it seems to be anyway, looking at all the joke submittals.
Remember this: when you can't "do it", you turn to comedy -- even Rem, Hadid, and the like do this.
These are good:
-- extending the esker
-- open book
-- publik
--cut
--forgot name -- Some Blue glass, 4th annex, tall freestanding mass entry -- very beautiful
-- neo geo -- very successful because height of massing matches that of asplund's library -- good move!
--civic magnet
-- there are many other good ones // many, many other bad ones.
These are great. (however, I did not look at all pdf's too time consuming. . .PDF? Why? JPEG's, that's the way the online expo would of worked)
-- interstitial readings -- great scheme
-- forgot name -- brown metal looking, roof deck, with one annex free standing -- great form
-- cityscape of knowledge(???) -- great scheme -- book system works
"Extending the Esker" illustrates the problem with schemes that keep the annex buildings quite well. The floors of the existing annexes do not align! So you have stairs at every annex building on every floor. That is a circulation and organizational nightmare. The very definition of an interior that does not work. Are there any schemes that have kept the annex building and solved this problem?
more pdfs are added...will it ever stop?
i hope so.
Man you think "Find the Naked Ladies" is bad. How about "A-hole in the Sky"
David,
I think cloud deck ( entry 833) solves the issue by making new levels inside the annexes...
I personnaly think the annexes weren't of interest so did not keep them anyway.
Its funny to see how Namericans and euro architects react to such demand : aka vague program.
I think personnaly all open books, objects related or morpho stuff have not a single chance since its too first degree, and usually student stuff.
I have noticed that there is basically 5-6 family of projects, and the question i'm asking myself is will the jury pick a few in each, or favor one family?
- triangular occupation of the site: leaves a good part of plazza between public building and library.. downside is the plazza is mostly north oriented so catches big shadows of the building ( despite fake sun shadows on some of the renders ;). This solution solves one of the main issue of the site: the shortcut from the railway station to the other street, leaving the asplund building as an island between paths. I like the S like solution with a glass facade using this solution.
-Keep all annexes and occupy the hill and make a slope going to the street between the annexes. Some good solutions, but i can't figure out how the thing is suppose to work in terms of flows...ALso am not convinced they are willing to dig "mines" into the hill..
- Not touching the hill solutions: i think some of them are interesting, but it usually ends with a huge block on the site, no entrance plazza etc... Some pastiche entries are sooooo " kazakhstan concrete style" that it is a bit heavy urbanwise ( symetries of everything, pastiche of asplund's rotunda etc..)
- towers: ok on paper, but how are flows suppose to work in there?
- ramps: quite a bunch of smart solutions to link hill and street, with the building under it, or part of it. I'm not convinced people will just be using that ramp so much ( how is the handicapped people suppose to use 20% ramps too.?.), and that a whole building design can be based on hypotetical urban flows ( if there was a huge interest for people to go on the hill besides walking the dog or flirting, it would be different).
- keep the last annexe and built in between: how is the program supposed to fit in there without beeing too shrinked...? haven't seen any interesting stuff solving the issue. What is strange is the poor link most of these projects have with asplund... as if it is quarantined... I'm not sure an extension can be done with a building with a simple 2-3m wide tunnel linking both...!
Another intersting thing ( and i'm with elisa's comment on this) is the fascinating use of computers to do what is suppose to be called architecture...Is a project that looks like a bicycle helmet architecture?
Big projects/cities with budgets are now all in the bilbao syndrome: a spaceship craft landed, and it brings people in your city. Is a non conventionnal shape necessarely XXIst century architecture as it pretends to be...?
I think the debate is open, but to my opinion architecture is not just the look of things, but how they solve problems and answer questions... not creating new issues or tremendous costs for the society ( how is "global illumination" project supposed to be build / maintained..?).. Does a building has to look trendy in terms of textures and forms to be a good building? Some people like Chipperfied or Souto de Moura among others think not, and i tend to think they are right. Gehry and the "spaceship sculptures" is fine when its not generalized in every place, as answers for all different themes. Cloning bilbao everywhere will only lead to poverty of thinking, cities are not meant to receive objects that will lead to Tschumi folies concept, with network and flows in between. I see it more as a continuum of constructed space, not as a grid.
My 2cts!
N.
Looking at extending the esker more, I think that this is a great one. In response to David's post, the flow is not "sweeping", however, there can be a flow that is about movement / views that has "stop and go". All this could be better, in my view, however, with ramps in lieu of steps -- wide ramps -- slim ramps and steps -- who knows; Or, remove the floors and start new, making "sweeping" connetions.
This proposal could be re worked to get it right. The connection to the Asplund library is on point. The way the project engages the hill is a winning move. The plaza at the street / entry works. I will not make comments on what I feel is wrong.
What I like most, is that I sense that this entry has a team of talented people. People who can see space. Why couldn't entrants solve the problem of using the Annexes? Just follow the guidelines; it's obvious that the jury wants to see the preservation of the Annex buildings.
It would be a great thing if you guys could let me know which proposals used the annexes well.
Thanks,
omen,
i'm not sure the fact that the jury wants to preserve the annexes is obvious... it think they are totally unsure of what to do with them, and if its a good idea to keep or destroy them. Hence the competition as a response to this question among others...
I'm not sure if you're familiar with competitions ( not a critic!), but i've seen / been part of so many teams that were overulled by good projects that were off bounds slightly that i am now more pragmatic.
A good answer is an answer that offers more than just a response to guidelines. The thin border between what is acceptable or not is what makes a winning project or not. If you check carefully the work of Jean Nouvel, and how he answered the programmatic answers to various national programs, you'd see he often went off bounds, not too much, but enough to have his project noticed, have the jury wonder, and win. Sometimes this politic leads to direct rejection, but if there is 1100 projects, its not idiotic to decide to remove the annexes, especially if you think the project could be better without, like many did....
As for 0600 - esker, there is many projects like it, and i'm not sure its among the best...plans are unreadable among other stuff ( is that 1/500th?)..Digging so much the hill will not get a winning project i'm afraid..It creates a huge north facade and it will be dark 7 months a year... in a freezing country!
breaking rules sometimes rules!
N.
oops my mistake there is another esker ;)
ok 0972 - extending the esker is yours!
wayyyy more interesting! but not my thing...too complex planwise to allow for good flows... also the street facade is relatively poor for such a program, and the plazza it leaves is not really fascinating. I think interior views are more interesting, although they show an interior that could be anywhere in the world.. Not very site related view.
N.
Yeah Nils,
I guess I wasn't clear. I was referring to the schemes that fill in between the annexes down to the street level. I just don't see ramping, stepping, or blowing out the annex floors working when considering the importance of organizational clarity and wheelchair accessibility.
Cloud deck is interesting. At first glance I thought it was really clever to build over the top of the annex, but ultimately I think it is too disconnected from the street, too internally focused.
My interpretation of the competition brief is that the library's big goal is to open the complex up to the the public. The original building is so introverted. They seem to want a new public face and entrance. Also, I think the new public program elements (24hr news zone, learning zone, auditoriums, class rooms, etc.) need to be accessible to the street.
DB
I mean highly accessible and clearly connected
Indeed, I'm reading between the lines RE: keeping the annexes.
And how do I derive this sense???
I relate the guidelines statement: ". . . Concept strong enough to withstand a dynamic implementation process. . ." to Raphael Meneo's struggle to achieve his design with his Stockholm museum. In the end, politicians chose the brown colored stucco when Meneo was adamant about using yellow -- he was quite disappointed with his Stockholm experience. Each competition in its own thing. Is this one about being sensitive to the existing buildings and context? I strongly belive this is what the jury envisions.
Oh, also, Extending the Esker is not mine -- Ha.
Great comments, guys. . .
thanks Nils for linking me to this forum on the Asplund design competition.
I was at the seminar beginning of the year in Stockholm and I heard some clearly outspoken wishes there about the dream the organisers have in mind:
1 a masterpiece would be welcomed as an alternative for the annexes.
2 the view on the existing commercial highrise would be a good thing to obscure.
3 the new buidling should be one with the old asplund and should draw the crowds they are looking for by the thousands mostly from the direction of Odenplan.
4 Seattle and its livingroom approach is the new "thing" is the library world and for good reason. Every one I personely spoke who has been in Seattle speaks of a dream library never seen before. The exterior seems not speak to most but the interior surely does.
5 world class is the keyword in Stockholm and the organisers seem very capable to seperate the more "local library buildings" from the truly world class buildings.
I don't see so much world class in the submissions. Most are way to small to be of world class. The Stockholm library is a bit out of the main stream Stockholm center area and therefore to attract new and large quantities of visitors there is the need for a new landmark of very modern and appealing qualities big enough to provide space for meditation and empowerment of the existing site. I can hardly imagine the staff of the new library hide under parklevel leaving the grand views over Stockholm to their neighbor, the existing commercial building. I can also not believe they are going to keep the annexes looking at the horrible interiors they provide right now especially keeping in mind the organisers have seen some remarkeble libraries around the world like the Seattle one.
I can also not imagine a tiny bridge or underground passway as a truly convincing way to unite new and old.
I have been reading a bit on Asplund and what others have to say about him, he seems to be a god in Scandinavia. That alone means all submissions that alter or change the Asplund building in any way beyond area 2 are going to be piled up as useless.
I also see many submissions trying to stay low preferably under the square volume of Asplunds building. This leaves many designs with large florareas with low ceilings not usually seen in world class buildings. I suppose this is due to most young designers having little experience with big buildings and spaces.
Here are some of my favorites although they miss worldclass as well I feel they are great designs for the site.
2 squares
down the rabiithole
janus
oasis
malmash6
I am afraid my submission is rather invisable, at least among 1100. I loved to take part in this competition especially since the organisers exposed all submisions before they came to their conclusions. For a while we could all feel like winnars. I am impressed by the organisers and wish them luck with all these submissions. I wish all competitions where organised like this. Sadly I have had my share of looking at just the winnars on the web announced months later without any chance of seeing the "loosers". Helsingor was such a competition I thought was such a dissappointment. All I saw from that one was two perspectives of nr. 1 and 2.
my feelings on the outcome of the first stage is that the jury will be very forgiving for the concept and details as long the submission is appealing and sensitive with its surroundings, in the second stage the final design can worked out to fit the program and constraint of the site.
Submissions that are very elaborate give more reasons for doubt and less reason for wanting to see a further development in the second stage.
The best concept I have seen sofar is the one that put the whole new extension underground under the library square pond. Obviously no landmark but still a great thought.
It's an eye-opener for me seeing the amount of time and energy that must have gone into all these entries and all the time and thought that you guys are putting into looking at the entries. One would expect opinionated soundbites (cynic-moi) but instead these are sober, considered reflections upon the schemes. Personally, I have neither the energy nor the inclination right now to take part in either aspect of this endeavour, but it's interesting to know you guys are out there...
just found 1038-gardens of connectivity
love this plan, also not a winnar as it is totally beyond the bouderies of the site I feel it is a great way to use the park. sometimes I think the site (area 2) is way to small to be of world class so close to Asplund.
Let's see if I can construct an argument for narrowing the choices. In the competition brief, it states they intend to increase the numbers of media available for check-out, while creating social and learning spaces. Larger, efficient floor plates would make sense given the relatively small budget of about $100M US +/- ($1 ~ 7 SEK). The Patkau library in Canada would probably be more economically equivalent to the stated budget, as I understand costs are higher in Sweden for materials, labor, health, etc.. Seattle is way out of their budget. If it is accepted that the budget is fixed at the above amount, a grand morrphing scheme is likely to be honored if beautiful, but probably cannot win the commission.
Every society has historical advocates, and Stockholm is quite vigilant about its cultural heritage. I cannot imagine a staff person at the library having great love for the annex buildings, due to the up and down of stairs, inefficient floors, separation of subject areas. THe floors do not align from one building to the next, and are terribly low floor to floor. They must be managment nightmares. It appears that historical advocates have influenced the competition enough to at least pay lip service to the preservation of the annexes.
The rest is politics, and a good image to sell. I can see an argument to keep the annex #1 to appease the advocates, the one farthest from the main library that is, and some schemes do recognize this. Keeping annex #1 gives a political win to preservationists, and allows for a fairly large area of contemporary architecture. Therefore, the winning scheme will keep one annex and be more conventional than ethereal.
Now it would be interesting to sort the projects by:
Annex #1
Annex #1 and #2
All annexes kept
Complete reconstruction
Other
ascension, thats a pretty thoughtful argument based on a number of pragmatic, quantifiable exigencies which might have guided the decisionmaking on past competitions such as this. i'm just as sure those parameters will be compelling factors which determine who and what wins this one.
however what are the less explicit, unempirical, perhaps less savory, and certainly ideological motivations which will be at play here? i don't want to operate on pure conjecture, but here are some guesses (based on absolutely nothing of substance) what a few of these unstated decisionmaking prerogatives might be:
1. "our city's got seoul": the proposition that as a civic expression of progress-affirmation, certain cities which are deathly afraid of being labeled culturally backwater (like seoul), express the frenetic desire to show the world it can boast avante garde architecture. if this is an itch stockholm wants to scratch, then certain schemes will be seen as lacking avant credentials and won't make the cut.
2. "back off our asplund": if stockholmites love the existing buildings as much as they claim in the brief, it seems counterintuitive that the guy from snohetta and that guy named caruso would be the signature outside jurors invited. i know they're not considered radical, but i assume that their demonstrated aloofness towrd historical context, as well as their youth, was meant to serve as a healthy counterweight to the old fogies and local operationalist goons on the jury. so someone's setting up a fight. (btw, full disclosure: i like operationalist goons.)
3. "lets sell the image to raise more money" or "hip hip hooray": the proposition that something different can ignite enough media excitement and just enough civic controversy to raise enough interest from the right people to open up their pocketbooks. this happens all the time in the u.s. if i were the politico charged with getting this extension realized and determined that the budget aint gonna get a monument to 21st century stockholm built, i'd ask myself what can get this new library some more notoriety, more attention, and therefore more money? i would answer back to myself - ask the young architects on the jury what is hip. listen to them. and make it so. sadly that's the right thing to do.
i'd love to be a fly on the wall on this jury. not only because i really have no idea what goes on in these things, but because, as ascension points out, the brief is so clearly schizophrenic about wanting preservation. but also that newly minted, seattle-esque cachet of hip.
it'll be interesting to me to see this unfold for this reason. oh and also because i'm competing.
There would be a lot of flies on the wall if that was possible...lol.
I have been in a few competitions the past few years and I have seen winning designs follow the guidelines carefully, being very low profile and simple to understand and rather invisable from a form or design point of view. There is a saying that a giraffe is a horse designed by a commitee. And I must say I have seen a few giraffes win as if they where Arabian full-bloods. Organisers and juries are commitees after all. The teams that came up with very risky designs are usually quickly recognised as very inexperienced. A good jury will give the organisers what they want most.....an internationally recognized master architect. You don't need a corrupt jury to seperate the beginners from the old masters. Once that process is finished you are left with about 20-40 plans. The rest is for refreshing ideas to use by the winnars in the second stage. If you study previous competitions you could say that to win a competition you should draw as little as possible and make your plan as easily recognisable as possible. Obviously you should always approach the competition in a very business like way, as if you had to give yourself points for all aspects the competition brief mentioned as important. The winnars will have a high score on that list. Not just a very high score on some of the aspects.
The difficult part in this competition is it has two stages. So the jury might be tempted to choose some designs that act as a counterweight on more traditional approuches. I am sure though that the choosen design in the end is the one that gives the least risk of problems, of any kind, the budget, the preservationists, and the existing library.
One thing is different in library designs though, the well know traditional library is dead, especially looking at Asplund. The real task is here to make a landmark, a new center where cultural life will florish and come to life, a place where there is lots more to do that just books or screens. Thats the great value of Seattle. The new library regardless of who will win must answer to this new trend otherwise it will be just more space added to the disfunctional Asplund as it is now. The existing Asplund and its annexes today are the opposite of the succes of Seattle. I am sure the jury and the organisers are very aware of this situation. Most of my friends who have visited Canada recently have gone out of their way to see the Seattle Library while none of my friends who have been in Stockholm over the past 20 years have been at the Asplund Library. You can not make a hole in the park or give the annexes a face-lift to change that.
I realize that this post may bring the discussion slightly off topic, but I have to disagree with the premise that the Seattle Library has been a success. Having visited this much talked about building I was astounded at the lack of quality throughout the complex, both in terms of the architectural concept and in terms of the materials and workmanship. While we can all admire the audacity of Rem and his cohort, and appreciate their irreverent take on the contemporary architectural "scene", still they were called upon to create an enduring functional building which Seattle-ites could love and relate to. This they have fallen far short of. Many people who live in that city (whose taxes built the library) are completely mystified at the praise which is being heaped on this mis-begotten pile.
Filver, I don't agree that the "traditional library is dead." Tho' it's true that this notion has been a starting point for the brief in the Stockholm competition, my own home town has a "traditional" library (of similar vintage as Asplund) that successfully carries out its mission and is a center of civic life here.
In surfing around the net prior to starting work on my entry, I was interested to read about some of the jury members and their place in Stockholm politics and culture. Many of these people it's true do apparently look to Seattle as a model, including the Finnish librarian on the jury. But I would say that they represent only a segment of society. The library will be a building for all of Stockholm. I would imagine that there's a plurality of potential users who would find a scheme in the Rem vein offensive and unworkable for their city. Witness Oslo currently. It will be interesting to see how the "forward-looking" bunch have to accommodate other more conservative viewpoints, and how this affects the eventual decision of the jury.
very interesting to see a different view on the Seattle library. I know Rem Koolhaas his work here in the Netherlands and also see and feel the way you describe your feelings about the quality of his work. Often it is lacking and often by me as well it leaves me wondering what all the praise is about. I must admit though that the Seattle Library makes a good impression on me as well as on my friends who have been there although only for a day. I think I should have gone there myself as well as to a few other internationally well known libraries to see. I have been at the Stockholm Library of Asplund and was not really taken by the gloomy, smallish and dark spaces that are present there now. I can imagine the staff looking forward to a whole new concept although keeping the present library alife and well.
I have been looking on the web for more discussion on the competition but can hardly find anything in English. 1100 submissions but only a few forums say anything about it.
Mostly because of Asplund I have given Seattle a lot of thought. To me the most striking element in that library is the concept of space as a unifying element, the abundance of space and light to be more precise. It is such a relieve to see this compared to the cramped and to the square meter optimised buldings. I feel that Seattle gives a lot of reason for thought. The in general lack of space can hardly be justified by beautiful architecture or wokmanship. In that way Asplunds library with its architecture and workmanship is a clear proof of that. The world is changing and I have seen examples of how to manage thousands of visitors in Asian malls, huge ones, never seen anything like it here in Europe. I feel that Koolhaas is mostly a very experienced architect especially in big buildings, in Seattle he lectures on space and the new age in where we have to deal with large amounts of people that are gathered or drawn into new buildings.
Looking at many submissions, especially those that keep the annexes I feel that they miss the point, how to handle the latest developments that are moving on in almost all big cities, the concentration of large groups of people once they are attracted to main events or exiting new urban developments as the new Asplund Library is going to be.
The one thing that can be said with certainty about the development of technology is that it is in a perpetual state of evolution. The internet barely existed ten years ago; what revolutionary technologies will be in play ten years or twenty years or fifty years from now? If the Seattle library building aspires to an architectural ideal in sync with global trends, I would say that this aspiration has been realized as a marketing image only. Maybe that's Rem's point--and how clever. But really, why build a library of this type to be less, not more reconfigurable than your average office building? Why design a complicated welded (not bolted) curtain wall, and give the building a shape that makes it impossible to modify in the years to come? Why not design it instead to be added to, or subtracted from, rewired and replumbed, or demounted and recycled with a minium of cost and effort?
In its inflexibility the Seattle library actually has much in common with the Asplund library. At least Aplund's building is honest about its aspiration to monumentality.
Rem's building (oops, Joshua Prince-Ramus' building) will be obsolescent in a few years. Not just because its moment will have come and gone on the worldwide architectural stage, but because it will be full of leaks, its shiny surfaces will be beaten to hell, and most importantly its systems and spaces will be unable to accommodate the next media breakthroughs and technologies. Is this laudable? For that matter the building is probably already obsolescent, just like when you drive your new car off the lot and it's suddenly worth a lot less than what you paid for it, and you watch it slowly fall apart because the engineers planned in a little early obsolescence. Perhaps in this aspect only--that its creators share a mindset with the global market in cheap goods--can it be judged to be an exponent of the age.
I am not saying that the library building type should be the ultimate configurable building. That would only be the case if you start with the premise that the library must contain all of the advances in media technology. On the contrary, I would start from the standpoint that librarians should keep a focus on the book, and the role of the book in modern life. This role has its own progression as the nature of society changes, but I think it's clear that the book will be with us always, in part because it's an elegant technology, a perfect tool for an imperfect species. It fits in the hand, it accomodates our optical outfit, it's portable, it can be smuggled and hidden, it makes it simple to access information. Also, a book needs a physical home, called a library, and people come together in libraries and from this arises community and social rebirth.
I think that it's pointless for the library to try to capture the market in new media; new media is inherently amorphous, there's no point in storing digital content at a library, or going to a library to use it. Librarians aren't going to be able to reinvent themselves quickly enough to avoid being swept down the drain of redundancy if they try to compete in this arena.
Call it a museum of the book if you will. And there's actually quite a bit of improvement needed and a good deal of architectural thought that could be devoted to this limited problem. Display of the book (the average book store does a better job), efficient sorting and storage, open access to shelves, wonderful well-lit reading places, good acoustics, planning for expanding/shrinking collections, planning for the possibility of reconfiguring public spaces, and yes encouraging the life of the city to come inside and participate in the library as a democratic setting for social learning.
There is so much confusion evidenced in the competition entries, following up on all of the confusion in the brief. Who wasn't confused, I certainly was! How do you expect the architect to sift all the new-fangledness if the experts, the librarians aren't able to? There's a basic misunderstanding of the architect's role in the idea that an architect is going to be able to reinvent the library for the librarians. That was another red herring Koolhaas left behind.
Very possible indeed as it is as you explain with all new technologies. But still thousands go to many buildings old and new like the new Gehry's and the old Guadi's. Why not have a very high ambition to make sure that at least in the first ten years the building will the draw the crowds you are looking for.
Well, to get back to the topic here I like 0178 - isbn 0-7148-3976-0-1 a lot. Its one of those truly beautiful plans. If it has the program fully incorperated I am almost convinced it will be the final winnar in the second stage. It scores on almost all point the highest, great combination with the park, fully integrated with the existing Asplund building, most important annex still standing, great square at the entrance, subway well embedded, transportation media and visitors clear, and on the whole a great piece of architecture. The extention is not a landmark though but Asplund is still there of course. Although I have posted here remarks that might want to see a larger and more prominent building I can understand the power of this one very well and the temptation it will have on the jury and the organisers. Its not my plan regretfully but it would be a thrill to be able to make out who is going to win...For now I would put my money on this one. I don't know however how Stockholm deals with snow and glass roofs, not too well I suppose.
PS, I was at the libray by Mecanoo in Delft that was shown at the Stockholm seminar and while I was in Delft bukkets on the floor hinted at the presence and amount of architectural leaks. That Rem's building will leak in time is no surprise to me. I have also seen new and very boring buildings leak.
One good aspect of 0187 isbn is that it does not destroy the all-important axis into the Asplund rotunda from Sveavagen. It looks like you move into the Asplund library from the extension only on the lower levels, then you must travel through it to the east until you can turn 180 degrees to get on the original axis upwards and westwards. Also, the reuse of the lower level below the rotunda is interesting.
Here in the States we have so much vacant urban land leftover from tearing down buildings, where the good buildings still standing look lost because they're surrounded only by parking lots. So I have some qualms about the ground-clearing that is proposed around Asplund.
Is there any hint of the identity of the competitor in the isbn number?
Taking a further look into this plan 0187 I begin to feel again as with so many plans 0187 is also smallish. The program does not seem to have enough air to breath in this concept. Maybe the idea of putting the whole thing under park level and have a free square at the back of Asplund is just a bit too much to ask for. Still I think the people behind 0187 are intelligent people with a good sense of architecture and the site. To think thousand are going to leisurely enjoy modern media here is hard though, it might not have the X-factor they are looking for.
It think the entrance is simply at the level of the rotunda as well as under that level.
Its true that since Asplund has such a clear backside, concepts with more buildup volume in area 2 would do well also.
I think for every concept there are hundreds of plans to prove their right. I found about 3 plans that follow my basic concept. I am happy not to have followed up on some of my ideas looking at the horrible results that others turned out with those. Especially ideas using characters, clocks, books or trees in the textures of the elevations......
I would feel terrible to ruïn a team's chances by disclosing their anonimity in case I would have a clou about their identity.
No I meant that isbn 0714839760 is an actual book! Look it up on Amazon by the isbn #.
I like your argument that a large building is called for. Probably a large building will win it. One with bulk and room enough for "thousands." But I'm sorry that Stockholm will have to say goodbye to those annexes. They are interesting buildings. And probably won't get torn down without a fight. In fact I still can't quite believe that the jury would accept their destruction (no problem with losing the most recent annex though). Having been to Stockholm for the conference, you must feel confident that a big building would sit comfortably on the site.
Fliver, Shrub,
I think it’s great to mix the Seattle library into this forum. We all must have reviewed the Seattle Library – AND for me -- it is too much like a shopping mall. So, YES to the need for flow and volume, and NO to cheap looking shopping malls, Or a movie theater lobby – Or an extra large Prada store – HA, ha, Ha. The important thing to note is that the Seattle library is not a model for a library, it’s a Library authored by OMA, or the prince, as you rightly state -- a one off. . .Haven’t been, but seems like a cool place for Seattle, for LA, maybe not for Stockholm, or New York for that matter. . .
looking back at some things I learned. . Through an intense study of the programmatic requirements for the modern library, The Prince’s supra-accurate form was created. At a certain point, after prince had worked and reworked the design, no piece could be moved because the functions in relation to daylight, etc. became too locked, resulting in the form we now see, which could no longer be reworked. . .complete bullshit. actuality, completely arbitrary. cute ideas, yes.
At the top floor of the New York City Public Library there is a Great Reading Room (kind-a-like a Living Room, but high brow). It has high, high ceilings, an abundance of natural daylight, the atmosphere is tranquil yet enormous. This Library also features an enormous entrance space, a great lecture hall and, in gen., a well functioning parti. . . wondrous, still today.
ha! the isbn trick was a good one!
I also feel most for a large building with qualities like the NY City Library. Have to say though that among 1100 plans those that are more like the isdn submission look more attractive. I have proposed a very large building and found it difficult to make it look good aside the Asplund. Would need more time and effort to make that work than I could in the realm of the first stage. To be honest, I have no large submissions in my favorite list aother than my own. Probably because I know my own design best and see the architecture in my mind while the jury will have to do with the A1's I provided.
Looking at the submissions I can hardly bring mysef to study submissions that are even a little abstract. I want to see a convincing site with the design clearly put in there otherwise I immediatly zap on to the next one. Would the jury do the same or would they be more willing to spend time studying what the designer is trying to show.
Any other forum members seen something they feel is going to win..
As for the annexes, they are really very bad. I have seen them and especially the interiors don't have anything going for them. The exteriors do nothing for the park or the surrounding buildings or have a lot to say about architecture other than their historic "importance". The annexes where clearly not a typical Asplund design and if Asplund was still around he would be the first to take them down. Obviously there are many in Stockholm that want to keep them fearing the new extension will not have the same charm. That fear is not the best advisor and I think nearly all submission that kept the annexes do so keeping politics in mind. With at least the last annex you will have less of a fight to get all behind your submission. Not a true wold class architectural approach but maybe the most practical.
As for the annexes, they are really very bad. I have seen them and especially the interiors don't have anything going for them. The exteriors do nothing for the park or the surrounding buildings or have a lot to say about architecture other than their historic "importance". The annexes where clearly not a typical Asplund design and if Asplund was still around he would be the first to take them down. Obviously there are many in Stockholm that want to keep them fearing the new extension will not have the same charm. That fear is not the best advisor and I think nearly all submission that kept the annexes do so keeping politics in mind. With at least the last annex you will have less of a fight to get all behind your submission. Not a true wold class architectural approach but maybe the most practical.
Let's check this. . .
http://www.ssb.stockholm.se/templates/OneColumn.asp?id=13847
Yes, those statements have been on the web since the submissions where in. Its clear they want a Seattle kind of thing. In that respect I can only imagine a large and grand design as the outcome. Still, after studying 1100 submissions they might be going in a totally different direction. Who knows, I felt completely like the statements but after seeing a great deal of the submissions I also like the less world class options with smaller spaces and less high profile designs.
Large building have to suffer in workmanship and detail if built for more or less the same planned budget. Its a matter of choice. However Asian malls usually have a different choice problem. That is the choice about who is going to design the mall, usually in Asia those are not the best designers but the designers closest to the developers families. The weird thing is that these malls are very functional even though they lack any kind of design quality architecturally spoken.
The more I look at the submissions the more I tend to forget my first favorites and come up with new ones. At every download page I find about 3-5 good ones, easy to understand with a clear concep
ISBN, not one of the best. . . I printed it out, however; that means it has certain qualities that caught my attention, and will catch the jury’s attention.
This library seems more like a college campus building -- like a big cafeteria – than a library.
And a lot of the planning is too generic, and armature.
The space is compositional, not conceptually derived, and therefore kind of boring.
The building wants to disappear, but can’t quite get under the pavement. Yes, preservationist’s entertain the “invisible” option ... this is not that though.
The undulating-like, changes in elevation of the glass roof make it look “weak”; a better move would be a flush, continuous plane, or ???. This glass “hill” will become iced up and become the ideal place for filming jackass the movie 3 -- it’s, in other words, a major public danger. A mock hill made of glass?
The idea is not to block Asplund’s Library from view from Odenplan. So, now what, the public sees is that ugly rear façade? The photo montage reveals a funny composition, which makes this vista worse than the current vista.
To descend or ascend, that is the question. Traversing steps up, symbolically suggests leaving the common street level and entering a more dignified place... going down is always a weak move.
The sun must be scooped up in the winter and controlled in the summer. If the roof’s form is determined by a sun study, it’s wrong. Look at what Aalto does with his roofs. In Scandinavia, catching the sun is much desired as the hours of the day 6 months of the year are too short, and the sun’s position is very low in the sky.
Do not like “decorating” the Annex
My--trying to be objective--view of ISBN in sum:
pros: no north shadow/ view up hill; makes connection to underground; creates a new, “powerful” vista of the Asplund library from the Plaza; works out program / shows interior layout as flexable space; saves one Annex; connects with hill; figures out separation of staff, media, visitor flows.
cons: not feasible/cost effective/ logical RE: structural and mechanical; not considerate of the surrounding context; funny relation to Asplund Library; looses points for amateurish planning.
I have not been checking the thread for a while and it is so refreshing to hear some dissenting voices about the Seattle library.
I have not seen it in person so I won't even debate the quality (of lack of quality ) of its construction.
What is puzzling is about the Seattle library is how quick everyone has been to accept it as the perfect model of new library. As if the solution for any public institution that maybe is no longer attracting too many visitors were to make it more similar to a shopping mall or a multiplex theater.
Rem Koolhaas, has made this cynical and sad idea more palatable in the architecture world by embellishing it and dignifying it with his clever propaganda style rhetoric. But why should we accept this model without questioning it? Why should we always go for the lowest common denominator?.
As somebody in the thread mentioned before an OMA-like building is the best way to raise money. But luckily -if i am not mistaken- this project is publicly funded, which means the administration can still make a decision that is not directly affected by big donors and/or market rules. Or at least one would hope.
Also it's true that we cannot foresee how technology will change the way we access and use all kinds of media in the future but isn't good architecture supposed to be timeless? The asplund library which despite all its inefficiencies is still very much loved by the citizens of Stockholm is a good example, and so is the New York public library, as omen pointed out.
I suppose we, as architects, could constantly try to keep up with the latest developments of technology which may or may not affect the way we use our environment, or we could design our buildings as "flexible" boxes (if that is truly possible) so they can accommodate any future change... or we could decide not to fetishize technology and just simply try to make good buildings.
So according to the press release the new library will be Stockholm "living room" , am i reading too much into it or is the author of the article thinking about the Seattle "living room"?.
Indeed, that has become everyone's reference point. But there is still hope at least until the 5 finalists are chosen.
Filver Omen and Shrub what are your favorites apart from ISBN#?
and dappy new year by the way.
I like the idea of reviewing one as we did with ISBN. … I list some favorites in an earlier post.
I think “the sunken garden” is worth looking at. The author(s) seems like some old, purist, modernist type who would get upset if he / she is not chosen, claiming “this new deconstructionist architecture has destroyed our profession”. . .but it’s good enough to review, and easy to understand. Yes, no color???
In sum:
Pros: big ideas – atrium and water wall – determine plan, deal with lite nicely. So, there are “architectural” ideas, not merely compositional; scheme by the hand of an old pro; connection to Asplund library creates a good flow all the wat to entrance; . . . “The entrance is an eye catcher. . .per the brief”
Cons: out of date “brutalism” expression does not relate to the surrounds or the Asplund building; does not preserve annexes; though worked out, very boring spaces – the connection from the Asplund rotunda to the new extension seems “dramatic--less”; don’t let the neatness fool you, his / her loading dock, for one, can’t be achieved as drawn. … let take a look -- www.arkitekt.se/s25904/f3349?skip25556=1000
I have given my favorites before in this thread, down the rabbithole, 2 squares and a few others.
The problem for me is that with 1100 plans I have no time to study all these plans and their floorplans. I just glance at the plans and see that most plans can not hold my attention. I learned a lot in this competition and will do things differently next competion. Its clear to me that if you want to win you must show a clear and sound concept, not complicated, not too architectural in its details and with a strong general appeal. My submission is way to abstract and asks for a very willing mind architecturally although I feel my concepts is the best even seeing about 700 plans till now. My concept is the big building one with a livingroom entrance. It could be a beautiful building but needs serious work in a second stage. So I feel that among 1100 there are lots of plans that cause a lot less friction in the jury.
I was looking for big building concept and find myself wondering why I don't like any of them as proposed by others. The lower, more or less in the hill concepts seem to be much more attractive than most others. For me this is a conflict between the program and what the site might like most.
Has anybody been at the exhibit, I am planning to go there for a day. I think for the big picture you have to be there to see the submissions at real scale. I have a feeling that at the exhibit you will quickly see the winnars or come to a shortlist of about 10 plans.
i like this idea of reviewing projects by pros and cons:
i am going to pick one those that was in Omen's selection, CUT. I actually do like it quite a bit.
PROS:
Very powerful entrance space.
Sinks the building into the hillside while maintaining connection to outside and sunlight (of some sort) at all levels
Potential for beautiful plaza space between new and old building.
maintains the annexes (if we assume that is a pro, but i am not so sure about it)
CONS:
Connections between various buildings and various program parts are too weak and limited.
Circulation withing bu idling is insufficient and there is no attempt at creating a processional way of going from floor to floor or from space to space. the connector piece between new building and asplund is labeled relax area but I imagine it will be a very busy and not so restful zone since it's the only connection between the two buildings.
the plaza and the landscape are too undeveloped, we can only hope something good will be done with them.
Cut has a clear concept, is not too architectural detailed, is not complicated and has a big general appeal. If it is choosen among the five winnars we all would feel symphaty for tat choice. I feel it could actually be one of the winnars also because it is one of the few truly original plans.
So, now the jury has to decide the plan has enough potential to be further developed in a second stage. That would mean:
-a better connection to the Asplund building
-more of a living room kind of space at ground level
-does it really have enough appeal when you render it in real life materials, not orange.
-will the trees on top of the plan survive since the building is actually under the park (far) beyond area 2.
-is it flexible and big enough, it does not look like it.
-the staff in the annexes?? never...can you image to be leading the world class new library and after that have to move over to the worst buildings in Stockholm, ok thats a bit much but after having been at some world class libraries and 1100 submissions you will want to feel like a master and be enjoy it to the fullest. Look at where the staff sits in the Seattle building.....
So the staff has to be relocated in stage 2, does that look possible.
happy new year... been out for a few days and finding those interesting stuff about the library and seattle makes me think 2007 will be of interest!
I mostly agree with filver on most of his ideas on what the jury wanted / etc... that is what i read "between the lines" of the brief.. and tried to answer accordingly.
Regarding seattle as the Icon of modern library. I think Rem's team have come up with an interesting concept, that is appealing in a way, but resumes today's thought toward big buildings: If we don't know the future, but still want to build something: lets make big open floors that will be able to receive different programs, evolutions etc... More and more competitions today, appart from operas and very precise programs are just hulls with a big, wide open megastructure that holds empty floors. Piano/Rodger's Beaubourg project was the first in the serie, and Rem's answer is basically the same stuff ( with much more architectured spaces): Be able to receive loads and loads of visitors with no small rooms so flows are not slowed. ( beaubourg sees 1.5 million people every year !). Rem's project has turned examplary status, as much as bilbao has turned " world class" status in cities: today the world class status means: show off to the others: aka: our country is not a follower but still a leader. This tendency leads to bilbao syndrome ( spaceship projects dropped here and there randomly ), and open space concepts. It might lead at the extreme to very fancy shells with air inside: aka floors but nothing more. I am not sure the tendency is to build liebeskind like museums such as Osnabrück's work since the design is so relative to what program it holds.
Countries are facing two dilemnas: building to last using today's materials and complicated facades ( leaks / lifespan of materials reduced etc..) and how to make buildings adapt to the unknown.. Is the solution in the open space ( aka no decision) or is it in junk buildings that one will be able to destroy and replace every 30-40 years ( japan's trend)..?
As for ISBN 0714839760: i like the plan also, but i'm sceptical about the full north oriented glass roof: it produces a much dug in the hill project, and a relatively small entrance, which should be much bigger to my opinion. The book storing is well taken care off, as well as how to feed the new building and asplund's.
It is the best " slope style" project i've seen.
Filver: let us know how it is at the exhibit, take pics eventually! ;)
Nils
interesting explaination of how OMA explains the seattle project:
http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=j_prince_ramus
Does anybody really buy that?
i would buy it for a dollar then expect 85 cents back in change.
architects had artist envy for most of last century. then it had historian envy for a period of time. now, thanks to mr koolhaas and ramus we have engineer envy.
as if all we do is solve problems in the most expedient way.
Here is a link to a Swedish blog that has some photos of the exhibition, gives an idea of what the exhibition is like for those of us who can't go to Stockholm . . .
http://humaniorabloggen.blogs.com/humaniorabloggen_odensvea/arkitektur/index.html
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