Carnegie Library Design Competition / Concours de la bibliothèque Carnegie
1985
Toronto, Ontario, Canada- Architecture for culture, research, sport or leisure
- Building
- Library
CARNEGIE 1985
A competiton for a prototypical public library design for a community of approximately 30,000 population.
OVERVIEW
If a Carnegie library were built today, what would it be? What building type would best serve the information needs of public libraries in the 1980's and beyond? What kind of structure would best accommodate new communications technologies and still remain a cultural focus of the community? These basic questions were the essential ones for the Carnegie 1985 competition.
The competition was meant to generate new ideas and to speculate on the public library of the future. The competition was not primarily to generate "state of the art" public library design. While a design meeting current standards and addressing already identified issues was considered to be the starting point, the projects evolved into more adventuresome approaches.
Ideas were illustrated in the design proposal. Evaluation for competition purposes was primarily based on the clarity of the point of view expressed through the project submitted and the proficiency of its illustration. There was no correct solution but certainly entries that were more insightful, provocative or better presented would be marked higher than others.
Program suggestions for a public library for a community of approximately 30,000 population represented a basis for a library that could be built today. These requirements did not necessarily represent the library of the future but offered a starting point for speculation about such a library. Participants in the competition assumed these requirements unless they were illustrating libraries that implied significant changes to this general program.
Some of the concerns that all projects were to respond to included but were not limited to the following:
- Incorporating current and proposed information technology and new building processes and materials into a design for a public library;
- Determining an appropriate design that recognized the economic realities of public building especially in smaller communities;
- A design that portrayed the various roles a public library plays in a smaller community especially as the informal cultural centre of the town;
- The design of an appropriate civic building comparable to that which the Carnegie library represents in most communities. Should the public library continue though to be, as in many communities, housed in a CIVIC monument?;
- A design that recognized the Carnegie library concept and the relation of a prototypical design to the needs of an individual community. While a particular community could be the generator for a prototypical design, it was the prototypical quality of the design on which the competition focused. This did not preclude either illustrating or allowing for the important consideration that each public library be able to respond to the unique needs of its community;
- The design should be adaptable to the various environmental conditions in Ontario.
Public libraries in smaller communities often tend to be the cultural focus of the community. While the programme did not indicate how this should be interpreted, this notion along with the fact that next to the City Hall the library was likely the most prominent public building in the community, was stressed.
The entries were to illustrate a basic premise about what a public library should be in the future. What the public library should be depended not only on speculations about information technology, new building methods and materials, as noted above, but also on what the perceived needs of smaller communities relative to the public library's role would be. To some degree this speculation also extended to what Ontario's society would be like in the coming years.
(From official publication)
A competiton for a prototypical public library design for a community of approximately 30,000 population.
OVERVIEW
If a Carnegie library were built today, what would it be? What building type would best serve the information needs of public libraries in the 1980's and beyond? What kind of structure would best accommodate new communications technologies and still remain a cultural focus of the community? These basic questions were the essential ones for the Carnegie 1985 competition.
The competition was meant to generate new ideas and to speculate on the public library of the future. The competition was not primarily to generate "state of the art" public library design. While a design meeting current standards and addressing already identified issues was considered to be the starting point, the projects evolved into more adventuresome approaches.
Ideas were illustrated in the design proposal. Evaluation for competition purposes was primarily based on the clarity of the point of view expressed through the project submitted and the proficiency of its illustration. There was no correct solution but certainly entries that were more insightful, provocative or better presented would be marked higher than others.
Program suggestions for a public library for a community of approximately 30,000 population represented a basis for a library that could be built today. These requirements did not necessarily represent the library of the future but offered a starting point for speculation about such a library. Participants in the competition assumed these requirements unless they were illustrating libraries that implied significant changes to this general program.
Some of the concerns that all projects were to respond to included but were not limited to the following:
- Incorporating current and proposed information technology and new building processes and materials into a design for a public library;
- Determining an appropriate design that recognized the economic realities of public building especially in smaller communities;
- A design that portrayed the various roles a public library plays in a smaller community especially as the informal cultural centre of the town;
- The design of an appropriate civic building comparable to that which the Carnegie library represents in most communities. Should the public library continue though to be, as in many communities, housed in a CIVIC monument?;
- A design that recognized the Carnegie library concept and the relation of a prototypical design to the needs of an individual community. While a particular community could be the generator for a prototypical design, it was the prototypical quality of the design on which the competition focused. This did not preclude either illustrating or allowing for the important consideration that each public library be able to respond to the unique needs of its community;
- The design should be adaptable to the various environmental conditions in Ontario.
Public libraries in smaller communities often tend to be the cultural focus of the community. While the programme did not indicate how this should be interpreted, this notion along with the fact that next to the City Hall the library was likely the most prominent public building in the community, was stressed.
The entries were to illustrate a basic premise about what a public library should be in the future. What the public library should be depended not only on speculations about information technology, new building methods and materials, as noted above, but also on what the perceived needs of smaller communities relative to the public library's role would be. To some degree this speculation also extended to what Ontario's society would be like in the coming years.
(From official publication)