Seattle Selects Dutch Architect
for Downtown Library
Seattle Public Library trustees May 26 unanimously chose Rotterdam, Netherlands, architect Rem Koolhaas to design the city’s new $156-million central library, scheduled for completion in 2003. After voters approved a library-system overhall in November 1998, Seattle Public Library trustees’ advisory panel sorted through proposals from 28 architectural firms in the United States and five foreign countries. Koolhaas’s firm, the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, was chosen after site visits to his buildings in Holland and France.
A May 27 Associated Press story credited Koolhaas with a “reputation for bold experiments,” among them his ongoing futuristic plan for the Los Angeles headquarters of Universal Studios, and a New York City bank that he converted into an off-Broadway theater.
Local artist Norie Sato, a member of the library’s advisory panel, said that Koolhaas’s selection will create a “new paradigm” for Seattle, which has a reputation for architectural blandness in its civic buildings.
Posted May 31, 1999.
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