Library Buildings around the World

doesn’t mean that these buildings can’t undergo adaptive reuse. But the weak link to the program certainly turns the
formal qualities of the architecture into the main event. As if anticipating such questions, the City of Culture has mounted its
own exhibition in the archive featuring a video of Eisenman explaining how he arrived at these striated forms.
Eisenman began with the outline and street plan of the medieval city of Santiago de Compostela based on the shape and
ridges of a scallop, the emblem for the shrine. He then placed a similar street pattern on the top of Mount Gaiás to separate
the original eight buildings and let the site’s topography mold this medieval pattern. Then he overlaid the plan with a
Cartesian grid while finally digitally warping the result with a computer-modeling wire frame to generate, he says,
“dimension and direction.”
Overlays and interplays of these grids are called out in stonework, mullions, aluminum channels, and glazing, as well as
contoured drywall soffits and walls inside the buildings. Lay people might find this flow and deformation a bit obsessive. A
different matter is the dynamism of the actual shapes and the surface textures of the swelling and heaving structures. You
don’t need to climb all the contours of these convulsing carapaces (as some do) to know you have entered an experientially
based landscape where kinesthetic and haptic, as well as visual, perceptions dominate. Even inside, where interior surfaces
assume quite different shapes, contracting and expanding spaces heighten the temporal experience of architecture.
Executing these leviathan structures should ultimately cost an estimated $581 million for the six buildings. But the economy
has slowed down the construction schedule to a point where no one is talking about the completion date for the last two
buildings, one of which is the opera, the other, now slated for a new technologies center.
Originally the design team wanted grass roofs, but found that grass was heavier and harder to maintain than stone.
Nevertheless, the local quartzite (in brown, rose, and off-white hues and varied textures) that clads the roofs and walls
proved to be hard for the local quarry to supply on time. Stone also came from Brazil.
The hand-quarried stone, cut by machine in 20-inch square blocks (with blocks at the edges specially trimmed), is mounted
on a steel armature of curved box beams (or steel girders in the archive) plus steel cross-bracing. The ventilated chunky roof
sur ges over an under layer of concrete deck, waterproofing, and protective insulation. (The interstitial space between the
two layers also houses mechanical equipment.) The side walls of mortarless quartzite panels with stainless steel reveals stand
out from the buildings like a rainscreen against galvanized aluminum. But while the steel and stone do a lot of work, the
actual structure of the buildings is reinforced concrete: the megacolumns are placed on a 53-by-66-foot grid, while a
secondary 26-by-26-foot grid of round concrete columns is rotated 7 degrees from the main one.
The glazing posed its own challenge; where a double curvature is called for, flat transparent, reflective, and opaque glass is
angled in layers to produce the contour. Since the library’s glass wall soars to a 98-foot height, cable-stayed vertical trusses
were needed for wind loads. They are plentiful: It seems even the trusses have trusses. Eisenman wanted (and thought he
was getting) gray glass, but it turns bluish and greenish under different lighting. Oddly, the glass sometimes overpowers the
stone, and the thick grid of variously sized mullions sometimes overpowers the glass.
This isn’t a work of architecture where you are overawed by the elegant detailing of the mullions: the strength actually
emanates from the skillful craftsmanship of the stonework. Eisenman gives much credit for the execution to architect of
record Andrés Perea Ortega, plus Antonio Maroño, the architect for the Foundation of the City of Culture of Galicia, who
has been on-site since 2001.
Although it is too early to fully evaluate a complex still very much under construction, already it has become a lightning rod
for debate regarding its high cost, excessive space, and ambiguous program. At least the current government officials in
charge appear to be fully behind it: Perhaps the perfect fit of program to form will evolve in time. As it ages, it will no doubt
lose its rawness, but probably keep its brute energy. The gesture is so defiant. Its brazen monumentality and unsettling scale
ravenously explore the difference between artifice and nature. Time will reveal its significance.
By Suzanne Stephens, June 2011 (http://archrecord.construction.com/projects/portfolio/2011/06/galicia-archive.asp)
Engberg Anderson. Madison, Wisconsin – USA
http://www.engberganderson.com
Libraries:
Gail Borden, Rakow Branch Library, Elgin, IL – USA 2009
Status: Competed August, 2009, Square Feet: 10,000 sf, Construction Cost: $3,400,000
Optimum planning allows the library to operate this branch with a minimum number of staff; emphasizing customer interaction
over material handling as the primary staff function will maintain the desired quality of library service. "Floating" librarians,
express check, digital reference and, ultimately, automated sorting are all accommodated at the Rakow Public Library.
Using the LEED Rating System as a template, Engberg Anderson has integrated three crucial sustainable strategies in order to
“achieve” a certification. The combination of cool daylighting, energy efficiency, and stormwater management has a compounding
effect on the project that each would not have by itself. Together these strategies are a reasonable, civic-minded, and contemporary
response to firmitas, utilitas, and venustas.
The project has been registered with the U.S. Green Building (Engberg)
Sequoya Branch, Madison Public Library, Madison, WI – USA 2008
As part of a larger urban mixed-use development, the 20,000 sf Sequoya Branch is registered to attain LEED - CI (Commercial
Interiors) Silver Certification through incorporating energy efficiency, natural daylighting and the use of sustainable materials. The
facility provides a full range of print and electronic resources, group and quiet study areas, and serves as a major community
meeting venue. (Engberg)
Beloit Public Library, Beloit, WI – USA 2007
From 1996 to 2007, engberg Anderson provided design services for on-going projects at Beloit public Library. It was then decided
that the library would relocate to the former JC penney store at the Beloit Mall. the 58,000 sf renovated
space contains all public functions on the first floor, and offices on the second. features include expanded
collections, a flexible computer training center, a divisible public meeting room, a children’s program
room and a two-story glazed entry lobby (Engberg)
Charlevoix Public Library, Charlevoix, MI – USA 2006
Alice and Jack Wirt Public Library, Bay City, MI – USA 2006
Cromaine District Library, Crossroads Branch, Howell, MI – USA 2005
Awards:
Wisconsin Chapter ASID Gold Design Award 2006
Iowa City Public Library, Iowa City, IA – USA 2004
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