New York Public Library will undergo a four year renovation of existing storage space, converting it to usable space for library visitors. This conversion will also turn the main branch into a lending library, a benefit not available since 1970, according to Architectural Record.
Foster + Partners has been chosen to design the work from a list of about twenty candidate firms, winning with the firm's history of new work to historic buildings (Foster designed the Hearst Tower atop a historic base, and additions to the British Museum and the Reichstag).
Foster has found resistance recently with his proposal for a new tower on the Upper East Side in New York City, largely because of incompatibility between the design and the neighborhood.
The Hearst Tower was also controversial in the architectural community, which lead Nicolai Ouroussoff to proclaim, "As you draw nearer, the facade's oversize triangular windows become disorienting." (NYTIMES, June 9, 2006)
There is no question that Foster's proposed design will likely be a modernist one. There will likely be no attempt to merge modern technology with contextual design (a more earnest challenge than inserting a techno-gasm into the square footage allotted).
Lucky for the city of New York that the library is a National Historic Landmark, which means that the exterior is protected from architectural vandalism, which is what we are likely to get on the interior.
Nothing is set in stone, yet. Let's keep our fingers crossed that Foster uses the vast resources of his firm to propose a design that is sensitive to the context established by other interior spaces of the library.
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