J and I visited my family in Austin for Thanksgiving. One of the cool things we did was visit the new main public library! The opening was overdue by about a year, but the building and landscaping are pretty awesome.
The building is at the intersection of one of Austin’s major creeks and the river in the middle of the city, so it gets some very nice views and hopefully a lot of business!
The front.The back and side, looking from a new bridge that goes over the nearby creek. That lowered sidewalk goes along the creek for a ways.A view from the roof of the library, looking south across the river and over to the Long Center and the Palmer Event Center.
The library has an awesome rooftop garden à la green roof and a solar panel array as an awning to provide shade (sadly, I don’t have pictures). There is also a screened porch, so that you can enjoy the weather, but the mosquitoes can’t enjoy you!
Looking down in the central ‘shaft’ of the library. That art clock features grackles, a local menace that, much like corvids, survives very well on human refuse.Looking up into the central shaft. The staircases and bridges are very Hogwarts-esque. The stairs and floors of the building are much too creaky for my tastes. They feel like they’re going to collapse one day…Weird street art that we saw nearby :S
2 Replies to “New Austin main library”
Slightly offended you called grackles a “menace!!”
Slightly offended you called grackles a “menace!!”
They’re not exactly a menace, but they’re not exactly not. Here’s an article about UT’s war against them in the past: http://kut.org/post/time-ut-austin-waged-war-grackles.