Building Spotlight: Downtown Des Moines Public Library
I think one of the coolest looking buildings downtown right now is the Des Moines Public Library building located on the eastern edge of the Western Gateway Park at 1000 Grand Avenue. This building is gorgeous both during the day when the bright sun is shining on it and fascinating to look at during the evening hours when it’s all lit from inside.
For a mere $32 million, the City of Des Moines, had a famous British architect, David Chipperfield design and build us a 140,000 square feet structure. The building also sports green roof construction, a first of its kind for the City of Des Moines. The function of the Green Roof Infrastructure provides many benefits to the building and the surrounding community as well as the beauty it brings.
The building appears windowless but turns out to have a plethora of full-height glazed surfaces. Triple glazing with an integrated copper mesh enables this optical illusion to occur. During the day, the façade seems opaque and glows with a warm, coppery colour. At night, when interior lights are on, the façade becomes transparent. This transparency allows the people on the inside of the library feel as if they are actually outside in a park.
If you look at the library from above, it resembles an airplane with the wings of the building meeting each other at broad angles. Reports show that the idea behind this shape was for the building to embrace its green surroundings and to create sheltered areas or ‘pocket parks’ between the wings.
Just to be fair not everyone thinks that this building is good public architecture. Check out what one local resident has to say.
Here are some more awesome photos of the library.
And here is an interactive virtual tour of the library from the Des Moines Register:
By MulderDSM
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Posted under Living Downtown | Last modified on September 26th, 2008.
Tags: Architecture | Building Spotlight | Gateway West | Tours
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MulderDSM on Tue, 16th Sep 2008 4:29 pm
Too bad we didn’t get a cool parking garage to go along with it like this one:
Pete Jones on Tue, 16th Sep 2008 6:10 pm
Yeah, that would have been cool to add that visual to the current Library…but it may have been a little too much.
MulderDSM on Tue, 16th Sep 2008 8:45 pm
Agreed, I just thought wow, this is different, not your typical parking garage.