Seattle Public Library
Seattle,USA,1999-2004
Seattle Public Library
The Library represents, maybe with the prison, the last of the uncontested moral universes: communal accommodations for ‘good’ (or necessary) activities... The moral goodness of the Library is intimately connected to the value of the book: the Library is its fortress, librarians are its guardians... As other mediums of information emerge and become plausible, the Library seems threatened, a fortification ready to be ‘taken’ by potential enemies. In this scheme, the Electronic is identified with the Barbaric. Its ubiquity and its uncontrollable accessibility seem to represent a loss of control, depth, tradition, civilization. In response, the language of the Library has become moralistic and defensive: its rhetoric proclaims - implicity and explicitly - a sense of superiority in mission, in social responsibility, in value... The Library’ s insistence on one kind of literacy has blinded it to other emerging forms that increasingly dominate our culture, especially the huge efficiencies (and pleasures) of visual intelligence. New libraries don’t reinvent or even modernize the traditional institution; they merely package it in a new way.
At the same time, the last decade has shown an accelerated erosion of the Public Domain, replaced by increasingly sophisticated and entertaining forms of the Private. The essence of the Public is that it is free. Now, it is substituted by accumulations of quasi-public substance that, while suggesting welcome, actually make you pay. The Library stands exposed at its most outdated and moralistic at the moment that it has become the last repository of the free and the Public.
Unless the Library transforms itself wholeheartedly into an information storehouse (aggressively orchestrating the coexistence of all available technologies to collect, condense, distribute, ‘ read’ and manipulate information), its unquestioned loyalty to the book will undermine the Library’ s plausibility at the moment of its potential apotheosis.
－Seattle Public Library Proposal - December 1999
圖書館，有如像是監獄一樣，是道德規範上最後的領域：它用來提供給公眾好的(或是必要的)活動…圖書館的優質精神與書的價值緊密地結合：圖書館是書的堡壘，而管理員就是它的守護神。當其它資訊媒介漸漸的嶄露頭角，圖書館似乎受到威脅，就如一座隨時將會被潛在敵人所”奪取”的堡壘。在這種情況，電子(科技？)被認為是一種野蠻行為。它無所不在及無法控制的影響，似乎一種失控、沒深度、沒文化、不文明的表現。於是乎，圖書館就變的道德及保守:言詞上明確且無庸置疑的宣告它在社會責任上、在價值上…使命的優越感。然而圖書館所堅持的功能也漸漸的被其它一些新興的運作模式所取代，特別是那些有極佳效率(及樂趣)和視覺資訊，因而加速傳統文化喪失其支配權。新興的圖書館不是要重新創造或甚至是以現代化其建設及機構；而是用不一樣的全新方式重新打包。
然而，在過去的十年裡顯示一些精緻且高度樂趣性的私人(服務？機構？)正在快速的侵蝕其公共領域。公共(服務？機構？)的本質就是它是免費的。而現在有越來越多的”類公共(服務？機構？)”，表現出它們歡迎您使用，而實際上是要賺你的錢。圖書館依舊維持這樣這樣老舊及傳統的原則，成為僅存的免費的公共(服務？機構？) 。
除非，圖書館能徹底的重新將自己改造成一座資訊倉庫(積極的安排所有可用的技術來收集、凝聚、分配、閱讀及操作資訊)，而堅持使用書本將會有潛在的可能性而來毀壞圖書館可行性。
The New Seattle Public Library
Our ambition is to redefine / reinvent the Library as an institution no longer exclusively dedicated to the book, but as an information store, where all media - new and old - are presented under a regime of new equalities. In an age where information can be accessed anywhere, it is the simultaneity of all media and the professionalism of their presentation and interaction, that will make the Library new.
Technology is not a threat, but it enables the realization of ancient ambitions - totality, completeness, dissemination, accessibility. In any case, the anticipation of a looming conflict between the real and the virtual is moot at the moment where the two can be made to coincide, become each other's mirror image. The virtual can become the distributed presence of the new Seattle Public Library that users find confirmed in its actual site in the city.
The library is transformed from a space to read into asocial center with multiple responsibility.
我們的目標是要重新改造讓圖書館成為一個資訊儲存的地方，包含所有新舊媒介，並不單單只有書本。在這個資訊發達隨手可得的時代，讓所有的媒介及專業的表現及互動將會給圖書館帶來全新的表現。
資訊科技不是一種威脅，它反而是可以用來實現我們古老的夢想-完整、完全、宣傳、影響。在任何的情況下，當虛擬跟真實可以同時呈現、替代對方的時候，海市蜃樓再也不是期待。用虛擬的方式可以用來展現新的西雅圖圖書館，而使用者依舊可以在城市中找到那確實存在的建築物。
而圖書館已經不僅是一個供閱讀的場所，更是一個提供多重責任的社交中心。
Flexibility（靈活性）
Flexibility in recent libraries - San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix - has been conceived as the creation of floors on which almost any library activity can happen. Programs are not separated, rooms or individual spaces not given unique character. In practice, it means that the bookshelves define generous reading areas at the opening, then expand inexorably to encroach on public space. Ultimately, in this form of flexibility, the Library strangles its own attractions.
A more plausible strategy divides the building into spatial compartments dedicated to and equipped for specific duties. Flexibility can exist within each section, but not at the expense of any of the other compartments... Change is possible by deliberately redefining use, rededicating compartments to new programs. (Cf. the LA Library, where the main reading room was successfully transformed into a children’ s library.)
近代圖書館的靈活性 - San Francisco, Denver, Phoenix – 已經盡可能的在圖書館所有活動及地板空間的使用上有了許多設計。計畫沒有被分開，房間跟一些獨立的空間沒有被給上特定的功用。實際應用上，在書櫃的走道隔間被利用為閱讀的空間，然後才延伸到外面的公開空間。最後，在這種形式的靈活度上，圖書館將會被自己設計的特性給勒死。
在一個更可行的策略就是將建築物劃分成數個特定的空間並給予各定的設備及功能。在每一個空間展現其靈活度而不是在其它空間裡有更多的花費…謹慎的重新設計下，將房間重新改變給其它活動使用。 (Cf. LA圖書館就很成功的將主閱讀室改變成小孩圖書館。）
Compression（壓縮）
The fact that the contents of a whole library can be stored on a single chip, or the fact that a single library can now store the digital content of all libraries, together represent potential re-thinking: new forms of storage enable the space dedicated to real books to be contained; new forms of reading enhance the aura of the real book.
事實上，整間圖書館的資料已經可以儲存在一小片的晶片上，又或是光單獨一間圖書館就可以使用電子媒介來儲存所有圖書館的資料，這樣的情況讓我們重新思考：新型態的儲存模式可以有更多的空間來放置書籍，新型態的閱讀模式也加強了書本的光環。
Aura
During the past decade, Seattle has played a pioneering role in the definition of a new society. In addition to the typical library, there will be 'attractions' that exploit the location of the library system in Seattle, in the heart of its emerging culture. The areas of 'flight,' the digital revolution and the evolutions of corporate culture, will be highlighted by offering access to unique materials and archives, organized in specific cores.
在過去的十年中，西雅圖在社會活動裡扮演著創新領導的角色。在這文化熔爐的中心，這些在圖書館上”吸引”的特性將會發揚在西雅圖的圖書館系統。區域的遷徙，數位的革命，共同文化的改革，將被強調提供進入到唯一的資料與資料庫，有特殊宗旨的系統。
New Equalities（新的平等）
Books have to share attention with other media of potent performance and attraction.
A parallel exists between the vast proliferation and incredible intricacy of program in the New Library, and the equally explosive multiplication of information media and social obligations that has to be accommodated within it.
書本必須要與其它媒介分享其潛在的公用及特性。
在新圖書館中，存在著廣大及快速增長且複雜活動的相似特性，以及包含著爆炸成長的資訊與社會責任的平衡。
Social Role（社會地位）
The Library has been transformed from a space to read into a social center with multiple responsibilities.
Each library today houses a proliferation of adjunct conditions that creates a conceptual imbalance:
since its format has never been fundamentally
adjusted to accommodate its new social role,
the Library is like a host organism
overwhelmed by its parasites
圖書館的功能已經從一般的閱讀場所轉變成有多項責任的社交中心。
現今每個圖書館都有著一些情況而造成概念上的不平衡：
它的設計結構從來就沒有從基礎做起
調整去包含為一個新社會角色
圖書館像是一個生物主
被附屬(功能?)壓垮
Contained SF （寬裕的存放空間）
The entire 2025 collection can be held comfortably within one demarcated zone, 19,129 sf less than originally allocated to it.
－Seattle Public Library Proposal - December 1999
連續到2025年的收集可以寬裕的保存在一個被界定的區域內，有19129個多的存放空間。
Platforms （平台）
Our first operation has been the ‘combing’ and consolidation of the apparently ungovernable proliferation of programs and media. By combining like with like, we have identified five platforms, each a programmatic cluster that is architecturally defined and equipped for maximum, dedicated performance. Because each platform is designed for a unique purpose, they are different in size, density, opacity.
The in-between spaces are like trading floors where librarians inform and stimulate, where the interface between the different platforms is organized - spaces for work, interaction, and play. (And reading).
我們首先要做的是”結合”跟合併表面上看到的這些快速增長且很難控制的活動及媒介。我們訂出五個平台，每種平台都有系統的規劃，且建築定義並賦予最大最佳的效能。因為每個平台都是有獨特的設計，不一樣的大小，密度，透明度。
而在各個平台中間的空間中，已經規劃好來給像是圖書館員相互聯絡鼓勵、工作、互動、遊樂(及閱讀)。
Platforms （平台）
By genetically modifiying the superposition of floors in the typical American hig-rise, a building emerges that is a the same time sensitive (the slopes will admit unusual quantities of daylight where desirable), contextual (each side can react differently to specific urban conditions), iconic. Its angular facets form, with
the folds of Gehry's Experience Music Project, a plausible bracketing of
Seattle's new modernity
基因方面的修改重疊的樓層典型的美國高樓，感光（斜坡將容納不尋常數量的日光是令人滿意的地方）的同時建築物浮現，（每一邊可以反應不一樣的特殊城市情況）畫像。
Virtual Platform （虛的平台）
For the Seattle Public Library (SPL), the intersection of identity and legibility occurs in the realm of the virtual first.
For many, the first point of contact with the identity of the SPL will be the internet site. It offers a unique opportunity to declare the pleasures and benefits of the new Library, as well as its structure and strengths. The virtual functions also as a training ground - introducing the platform model, the hierarchy, features and formats of the new library, facilitating navigation (and reducing demand on staff) for visitor orientation in the real communities that will regularly 'embody' themselves in the real building.
Real and virtual space are conceived in parallel, as part of the same architecture. The communication strategies that provide access and clarity in the space of the library are mirrored in the virtual platform.
在西雅圖公共圖書館，交叉的特性以及容易被發現的在各區域的虛的平台上。
對許多人來說，進入圖書館本體的第一個重點將會是網際網路區域。它提供了獨一無二的機會去宣告新圖書館的消遣和優勢，不但是構造而且也是長處。虛空間的責任也是介紹各平台的空間，是新圖書館的特色跟形式，讓人們容易導航，像有規律的共同社會對於讀者的定位，使他們具體化的出現在建築物中。
真實與虛的空間是平行的構想，與一部份相同的建築。交流的策略提供接近與清楚的空間
