Herbert Wright channels his inner Molesworth
Who woud hav ever believed it that grate edifices bilt for swots woud be so exciting? Yes I am talking of that most hallowed (here I clear my throat) Typology, home to grate tomes and ‘shhhhh QUIET Please!’, namely the Librarie. (nB I had hithertoo thort Typology to be or not to be the study of Type as in the grate Detecktiv with magnifying glass deducting from whome the blakmail note is from ect.ect.).
It seems only yesterday that 2 Grate Libraries, Mecanoo’s Librarie of Birmingham and Austin-Smith:Lord’s rebilding of Liverpool Central Librarie had revealed themselves as fantastick adventures in internal space (as opposed to Outer Space where natrally you woud nede a space suit). Not only that but both had steaked a claim as The Largest New Librarie in All Europe. In days of Your these fine Cities may well have gone to war over such claims, but I imagin Health & Safety regulations have prohibited the use of Catapulte (pocket-size or big-wheel road-version), and besides both parties must be soothed by being awarded Regional RIBA Awards for the A4-said 2 Edifices.
Anyway that is all Olde Hat now becos along comes another Largest New Librarie in All Europe just opened this month (August), and it two is SUPER-WIZZ even for those who are by no meens a swot. I refer of corse to the National Librarie of Latvia in Riga, by a steamed Latvian-by-berth arkitekt Gunnar Birkets. No he was not in the RAF but rather has been in the USA working since the 1950s and has produced many bildings of grate merit, including I mite add the Duluth Public Librarie in Minnesota (1980) that onestly looks like a silver FLYING SORCER stretched back along a hovering horizontal trajectorie WOW! Amung the many most Interesting Fakts about the new Latvian job is that its shape is inspired by not 1 but 2 locale faerie-tales viz. The Castle of Lite and The Glass Mountain. The later was about a fayre Princesse stuck at the topp of a glass mountain so slippery no man however brave coud get a grip and reech her. Obv. this legend was befor the great skyscraper-skaling Alain ‘Spiderman’ Robert.
Now along comes another Largest New Librarie in All Europe just opened this month (August), and it two is SUPER-WIZZ even for those who are by no meens a swot
P.S. Talking of the Francais it must be noted from fr. lessons that Librarie in fr. meens Bookshop, tho I have yet to see our over-the-Chanel brethren offer kash for anything in my locale Librairie, possibly because the books are somewot dog-eared and umbellished often with faskinating skribbles hem-hem in the margines, in the grate tradition of medi-evil illustrators but with a Biro or (I think) ketchup, not the same palet of gold and coloures at all. Why in Paris the biggest librarie had to be named the Biblioteque Nationale just to stop Parisiennes trying to bye the books and emptying the place, wot unspekable chic. On a skool trip I do recall the grate edifice(s) (1995) by Dominique Perrault was like stood up books for giants, son dout if bilt now the Francais woud make it look like 4 Kindles or sumsuch.
Soon I feer the locale librarie will shut for savings (not just daylite but eternally), a great Tragedie. Indeed daylite is already provided courtsey locale robbers who availed themselfs of the metal roove (rotters). Yet paradocksically the A4-mentioned ginormous new Librarys doth rise. Hark, is the Librarie the cathedral of our time viz. those big new atriums that reach for Heaven? Shorely that is better than Yet Another Ikonic Art Gallerie for cissies cos you can bone up about Space in a Librarie. If the Francais hav not alredy bort the book that is.
Trained physicist Herbert Wright is an architectural writer, historian and art critic
Sky won't Fall
Many predict a property bubble to burst in China – it may be doing so as this goes to press. So much for the western architects’ bonanza there if it does. But expect Zhang Yue’s Broad Group to press ahead with Sky City One, the world’s tallest tower – he doesn’t depend on financiers or foreign architects.