Author Archives: Severn Clay-Youman, AIA, NCARB

AIA Center Symposium on Libraries

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I know this is the weekend before your project presentations (and not cheap, either), but if anybody wants to attend this and report back to the class, I am offering extra credit!

Talks at the AIA Center are almost always insightful and thought-provoking, and it will help you with the final project to get some perspective on the issues involved: 

TheReportsofMyDeathhaveBeenGreatlyExaggerated:LibrariesfortheFuture

AIA CES: 4 LU | 4 HSW

When: 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM SATURDAY, ARCHTOBER 29

Where: At The Center

In the early 1990s, the rapid rise of digital technologies led many to predict the demise of the library as we knew it. Not only were books going to disappear as the support for knowledge and literature, but digitization, combined with the internet, would negate the need for the public gathering to read and consult research indices in libraries. Yet libraries have flourished at all scales, even as we recognize that there are great challenges to their function and to their public place. Today’s libraries continue to thrive and evolve.

The symposium consists of two panels.
The first panel looks at The Library in Civic Life, now that it is clear that the death knell was bypassed. This panel will bring together librarians and professionals involved with the creation and conceptualization of libraries. What have libraries become in the digital world? What is a library if it is no longer primarily a place for storing printed and other media? Although libraries have had, for at least two centuries, public realms that extend beyond research and reading, what is it that makes a library a library and not simply a community center? What are the common values that define the library and its building? How does the library remain relevant and fulfill its mission when it has taken on so many auxiliary functions?
The second panel looks specifically at issues of The Architecture and Spatial Design of Libraries. How is that mission translated into form, into place making, into building? What makes a building look and feel like a library? How do designers balance the quest for liveliness, which often brings along noise, with the atmosphere of contemplation, reading, study, and the capacity to pursue private needs in a public setting? How is privacy and publicness negotiated in the library, where the relationship between the individual and the public is different than in many other building types?
Through a closing keynote, conclusions and questions from the two panels will be brought together to find common threads and open challenges that shape the ever-evolving role of the library in our age and in our cities.
The Library in Civic Life
Moderator: 
Inga Saffron, Architecture Critic, Philadelphia Inquirer
Panelists:
Luis Herrera, City Librarian, San Francisco Public Library
Deborah Jacobs, Director Global Libraries Initiative, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Jeffrey Schnapp, Faculty Director, metaLAB, Harvard University
The Architecture and Spatial Design of Libraries
Moderator: 
Barry Bergdoll, Hon. AIA, Meyer Schapiro Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Columbia University
Panelists:
Clifford Gayley, FAIA, LEED AP, Principal, William Rawn Associates, Architects
Francine Houben, Founder/Creative Director, Mecanoo
Chris McVoy, Senior Partner, Steven Holl Architects
Abigail Van Slyck, Dean of the Faculty, Dayton Professor of Art History, Connecticut College
Keynote
Anthony Vidler, Professor, Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture of The Cooper Union
Organized by: Center for Architecture
Price: $20 for AIA members and students with a valid student ID, $30 for non-members