I had the pleasure of visiting the Salt Lake City Main Library a few months ago. It was designed by Moshe Sadfie. Great space.

I spend many a lunch breaks in this library's courtyard. Designed by Robert Stern.

I also recommend checking out this book: The New Downtown Library.

I also recommend scrolling to the bottom of the forum page and typing library in the search box. You'll find good info there.

thanks I appreciate it

i've done some pretty exhaustive research on libraries, as that's what my thesis centered on... kinda.

furness: fisher fine arts library


louis kahn - exeter library


dominique perrault - national bibliotecque


patkau architects:
newton library


winnipeg library


montreal library


machado silvetti: allston branch library


herzog + de meuron: eberswalde library


cottbus library


mecanoo: TU delft library


henning larsen: malmo library


turku library


asplund: stockholm library


aalto: viipuri library


siza: aveiro universidad


shigeru ban: library for a poet


alsop + stoermer: peckham library


calatrava: ETH law library renovation


galfetti: accademia library


botta: capuchin monastary


there are a plethora here in seattle as well:
cutler: capitol hill library


cutler: maple valley library


bohlin cywinski jackson: ballard library


schact aslani: douglass truth


miller|hull and olson sundberg have done a few that aren't very good.

also, look into mediatheque sendai (toyo ito) and the one by perrault as well.

feck i forgot to resize... well, all the more reason to hit the library.

scogin elam and brae did quite a few libraries as well.

and why aren't you in the library doing research? check the avery index.

also worth looking at Utrecht Univerity Library by Wiel Arets...and then of course the two unbuilt OMA gems: Tres Grande Bibioteque Paris and Jesseu Library

the new Prague Library by Future Systems is quite 'interesting' too

holz.box's collection is excellent. you owe it to yourself to find and understand all of them. it'll seem like a pain in the ass, but you need to absorb this stuff.

i'd add:
-alvar aalto's mt angel library,
-alvar aalto's viipuri library,
-a few of the libraries of meyer scherer rockcastle,
-other libraries by wil bruder in addition to the main phoenix library,
-other phoenix libraries by other archs (amazing building program lately!)
-marcel breuer's library in atlanta/fulton county,
-the new cesar pelli library in downtown minneapolis, and
-hans scharoun's library in berlin

you should check out the recent results of the competition to add onto the asplund library that holz.box showed above. hundreds of proposals from names you know and names you don't - all very different - for what a new library addition to an iconic library building might be.

and if you really want to push the limits, look at things beyond libraries: things that might be called new media centers or some such thing. projects that don't follow the traditional library model. example: diller scofidio's proposed eyebeam project.

There was a recent shout-put on Thread Central to the William J. Clinton Presidential Library, designed by Polshek.

Does anyone know of a university library in Germany that is a red block enclosed in a glass cube? It has the little pocket study rooms hanging off the red block. A saw an image of this library years ago and have been unsuccessful to find it since.

has anyone mentioned sendai mediatheque - ito?

although i cannot personally vouch for it, snohetta did a well published library in egypt that's probably worth checking out

great examples above...

by the way, it is Henri Labrouste

and the main hall of his Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris is stunning...

New Library in Minneapolis is pretty nice:
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/19/Public_library_minneapolis_exterior.jpg/800px-Public_library_minneapolis_exterior.jpg&imgrefurl=http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Public_library_minneapolis_exterior.jpg&h=600&w=800&sz=127&hl=en&start=1&sig2=GO29_H0Ydny0zsqnF9c7bA&um=1&tbnid=Md26vED0taJ_NM:&tbnh=107&tbnw=143&ei=6jjMRs6eDanKiwHl0tnTCA&prev=/images%3Fq%3DLibrary,%2BMinneapolis%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Dactive%26sa%3DN

also - check out jose plecnik's national and university library in ljubljana

i thought the revolutionary seattle public library obsoletadated these other libraries.

a few i remembered today:

chipperfield: des moines library


foster: university library berlin


snohetta: alexandria library



and busted out the list , a few more worth looking into:
ortner & ortner: SLUB (saxony state & uni library)


betrix & consolascio: kuesnacht mediothek


hans scharoun: staatsbibliothek berlin

ReimarHerbst: dresden school library
[img]http://www.german-architects.com/portal/pics/_cache/images/43028_A-1.1.jpg[img]

max dudler: berlin library

damn...
ReimarHerbst: dresden school library

Ussher Library, Trinity College in Dublin (McCullough Mulvin Architects)

Regional Library and Archives of Madrid (Mansilla + Tunon Architects)

Honan-Allston Branch of the Boston Public Library (Machado and Silvetti Associates)

Thank you everyone. I appreciate all the help.

yeah, holy crap... bravo archinect.

some more that i don't think have been listed:

-boston public library in copley square (mckim, mead & white?) with an addition by philip johnson

-the addition to the law library at the university of michigan law school by gunnar birkerts. especially interesting because it's completely underground but makes extensive use of daylight

Eskind Biomedical Library at Vanderbilt University.

I don't know who designed it but I love it.

jose vasconcelos library in mexico city by alberto kalach.

has anyone brought up wiel arets new library at the university in utrecht. it's a beauty!

There is the Library at Yale....just can't think of the name....The one with thin sliced stone which tranmitts light.....

oh, you're thinking of the beinecke rare book library. i thought it was sarrinen by double-checking revealed it to be som (gordon bunshaft).

the stone transmits light? or is it so thin it's translucent?

this thread is awesome. i'm guessing that the stone at the beinecke library is thin enough to allow light to pass through, so yes, translucent. no?


holz - i'm dying to know the provenance of the image from the front of the galfetti library up there.

i love that kind of work...sort of mayan, kind of ancient and pre-historic and just a bit scary.


and as always, kickass collection of images! thanks all for posting them.

Yes, the Beinicke building stone is some sort of thin quartzite. Though it looks whitish grey from the outside, the light it transmits is fairly yellow/orange, and dim. But you can read the marbling in the stone.

The interior is beautiful....

i recognize the image on the galfetti. probably sacrilege to say this, but i think it's either picasso or corb.

i just wanted to say that THIS thread is completely kickass.

hmmm SW, just saw your post...why sacrilege? because it might NOT be one of those but you think it is?

either way, it too is completely kickass.

any idea where else you might have seen it?

oh, just because picasso is on a diff level than corb and to equate them is irresponsible. i should probably have looked it up. but didn't. and won't.

i don't think you were equating them, simply stating that a given drawing could have come from either one of them...one guy's bad day might another's best.

Jaume Fuster Library - Josep Llinàs, Barcelona 2005

What about Giancarlo Mazzanti's - Biblioteca Parque Espana
See

link