Library Buildings around the World

Westmount Public Library Branch, London, ON - Canada 2002
joint venture with Shore Tilbe Irwin & Partners.
This new facility of 15,000 sq. ft. consists of stacks, adult and children’s reading areas and meeting rooms. Unusually for a library, it
is located in a “pad” in front of a mall style development, so the project looks outward towards the street and inward towards a
small reading garden. The building can be opened after the library’s operating hours to be partially used by the community.
Patkau Architects, Inc., Vancouver, BC – Canada
http://www.patkau.ca
Libraries:
La Grande Bibliothèque de Québec, Montreal, QC – Canada 2000 – 2004
Architect: Patkau / Croft Pelletier / Menkès Shooner Dagenais architectes associés
Awards :
Winning Submission, International Design Competition 2000
Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Architecture 2006
American Institute of Architects / American Library Association Honor Award 2007
The Bibliothèque Nationale du Québec is a 350 000 sq ft central library for the province of Québec. Located in the Latin Quarter of
Montréal, the building consists of general collections, an historic Québec collection, and a variety of public spaces including a lecture
theatre, café, gallery, garden, and booksellers. The collections are housed within two large wooden rooms, each with different
characters. The Québec collection is conceived as a grand room, inwardly focused, with the stacks at the perimeter and reading areas
within. The general collection is conceived as a storage container for the various materials of the collection with reading areas
outside its boundaries. Connecting the collections is an architectural promenade that begins at the entrance of the library, and
weaves upward through the collections to a public reading room. Complementing the architectural promenade is a conventional
circulation system with elevators and stairs that allows for efficient access to the library. The wooden rooms are housed within a
glass and copper-clad building. Between the wooden rooms and exterior skin are rich and complex spaces that reflect the diversity of
the program, through a variety of light conditions, scales of spaces, and unexpected adjacencies. The public spaces of the library are
arranged in a topographic manner below the collections, so that the public spaces of the library support and activate the public
spaces of the city. (Patkau)
Winnipeg Centenial Library Addition, Winnipeg, MB – Canada 2002 – 2003
Architect: Patkau Architects / LM Architectural Group.
Awards:
Winning Submission, Design Competition 2002
Prairie Design Award 2006
Lieutenant-Governor's Medal in Architecture 2007
Governor General's Medal in Architecture 2008
A major renovation and addition to the Winnipeg Centennial Library is proposed to revitalize the existing 1970’s building. Changes
include reorganization and expansion of the collection, reorganization of the circulation systems, and new social spaces. The existing
library consists largely of independent floor plates isolated from one another. In order to foster a greater sense of community within
the library, a large terraced reading room that interconnects the existing floor plates and a new fourth floor was developed along the
edge of the building. The terraces complement adjacent functional spaces, and an integrated staircase provides convenient irculation
between the floors. At the top of the terraced reading room, (presently the roof), a new grand space houses the Library’s reference
collections. Because the existing library is largely introverted and lacks any strong connection to the exterior, the entire edge of the
terraced reading room is glazed, opening up the library to views of the adjacent park and city streets. At the same time, the glazed
wall allows the life of the library to contribute to the life of the park and street beyond.
Newton Library, Surrey, BC – Canada 1990 – 1992
Awards:
Governor General’s Medal 1994
Canadian Wood Council Merit 1994
To give the library the presence necessary to allow it to compete on a typical North American “commercial strip”, the height of the
single-story perimeter walls to the north and south are exaggerated. Not only does this give the building greater presence on the
street, but it also allows large amounts of natural light to enter the building: on the south side through carefully controlled openings,
and on the north through a glass curtain wall that allows a soft ambient light to fill the interior. While the walls to the north and
south are exaggerated, the entrance to the west is compressed to a human scale. This compression runs the entire length of the
building, creating a valley in the roof that helps to reflect natural light deep into the interior. This valley also works in conjunction
with an attic space to provide a plenum which houses the air distribution ducts leading from a mechanical penthouse. The cross
section of this attic space diminishes as it moves away from the penthouse, resulting in a cross slope which drains the entire roof to
each end of the building, where rainwater is collected in rock cisterns and allowed to percolate into the water table. The construction
of the building begins with a laminated timber frame on a concrete base. The tectonic qualities of this construction establish the
primary character of the building shell. To reflect natural light deep into the interior of the library, a complementary clad
construction of white painted gypsum board on the interior, and stucco on the exterior, is overlaid on portions of the building. In this
way a dialectic of construction types energizes the architectural expression of the building. (Patkau)
Eric Pelletier Architecte, Québec, QC – Canada
http://www.epelletier.com
Libraries:
Bibliothèque Ville St.-Laurent, Montréal, QC – Canada on design
ep_a remporte le concours pour la nouvelle bibliothèque de l'arrondissement Saint-Laurent à Montréal ! Le projet sera réalisé en
collaboration avec Cardinal Hardy, Labonté Marcil et avec les firmes d'ingénieurs SDK et LBHA. Projet ou les limites entre le
paysage et l'architecture se confondent et modifient les perceptions de l'usager, bibliothèque ouverte, accessible et perméable, liant
l'usager au paysage. (Pelletier)
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