How can you possibly read a book or concentrate on writing when they are ripping the sides of the house out? Time to mount the magic carpet and find the perfect library. It turns out to be in China and it is something else.

MVRDV completes library shaped like a giant eye in Chinese city Tianjin

The Dutch firm MVRDV (Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs und Nathalie de Vries) built this futuristic concoction in a suburb of the important harbor town Tianjin. It has room for 1.2 million books, with the shelves clinging to the indented walls. The end of the shelves extend through the walls to the outside, providing some sort of privacy grid. The library can be entered in front and in back, as a connecting link between a future park and suburban apartment houses. That huge ball you see in the center of the library is reflective, making the hall look larger. It also contains an auditorium. Additional conference rooms and audio labs are located under the roof.

Come to think of it, I probably couldn’t read there any more than I can now here at home. I would be too distracted by the wish to photograph every single architectural detail.

Photographs of the building are from the web, the rest were taken this grey, cold March in Seattle’s Chinatown.

 

If you compare the new Chinese library to the one in Seattle, or, for that matter, the State Library of Hamburg, it is clear where the future lies.