It is the first time that I am actually made to look this closely into what a library is, we almost take them for granted. Even though I grew up visiting the library at my school, I understood the concept of a library to be as if they were places of storage of books, books that no-one looked at for years until someone stumbled upon them or really needed them for research.
I visited the New York Public library to look further into what these containers of knowledge could serve as, to the public and to the culture of the place. The library has four accessible floors, the ground floor with the children’s center and the coats checkin-checkout. The first floor being elevated on a platform, making one enter into a grand hall that seemed to be designed as a meeting as well as a departure point through the staircases on each side leading one to the floor above and corridors in the front that lead the public to rooms.
The first floor: As one crosses the hall and cuts into a passage that connects rooms one finds the library gift shop and the cafe that are across from each other that actually become a part of this passage but one can choose to move ahead to certain rooms that the passage leads to. Smaller rooms for specific genres of books and washrooms and an education center thats actually a newer contemporary construct that is fitted into the stone walled spaces, the newer construct sits within this space, respecting the older structure by not touching the walls, but sits there as a capsule that serves as the visitors theater, auditorium as well as classrooms.
The second floor: The second floor made accessible by the stairs in the hall on the first floor also contains smaller study rooms adjoining the passage. Staircases in the center of this passage leads one to the third floor of the building.
The third floor: This floor contains very large spaces, mainly for reading. The main reading room being nearly the size of a football field.
The books in almost all spaces are stored in shelves which run around the perimeter of the space. The centre of these paces have tables and chairs for the public to sit and read on. The walls of the passageways exhibit work. Apart from the accessible spaces the library has large storage spaces and rooms for preservation. There are plenty of help desks to help the public navigate through the library. Plenty of washrooms for the public, and spaces of gathering that exist for the sake of experience of being in the space, they bring the public back to not only use the spaces for the resources but because how the place makes them feel. Maybe coming back to the space because of the experience makes them open a book that wasn’t touched for years.
