The Seattle Central Library has its origins in an ambitious desire to re-create the entity we know as the library. When the Dutch architect Rem Koolhaas unveiled his schematic for the building, nearly four years ago, his expressed goal was "to redefine/reinvent the library as an institution no longer exclusively devoted to the book―as an information store, where all media, new and old, are presented under a regime of new equalities. In an age when information can be accessed anywhere, it is the simultaneity of all media and the professionalism of their presentation and interaction, that will make the library new." Rather than create one more library that would serve primarily as a repository of books―a place where reading areas and public spaces would inevitably be crowded out by an ever-increasing inventory of titles―Koolhaas conceived the Seattle Central Library as a series of independent but connected spaces that would house a variety of media―as a structure divided into efficient compartments dedicated to and equipped for particular functions.
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