The role of the library and the public’s interaction with it has changed irrevocably since the beginning of the 21st Century and the viral nature of new media outlets will undoubtedly continue to erode the library’s role as an epicenter of archival knowledge. 

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This proposal for the construction of a new public library in an old warehouse in Long Island City was developed around the premise that the “book” is no longer the pre-eminent medium for recording or disseminating information and consequently the library has become less a center devoted strictly to learning and knowledge and more a dynamic, flexible and less prescriptive civic space. To that end, this scheme sought to formalize the collection of the library as a series of glass volumes that bisect the floor plates of the existing warehouse, accommodating shelving around the inner perimeter and allowing users to circulate through the building by entering into a procession up and around the book towers. The structure of and procession through the book towers conjures up formal and experiential allusions to museum displays, where the items to be viewed are stored in glass enclosures and the visitor’s procession through the exhibition is deliberately and strategically choreographed