| In 1905, a Carnegie Library occupied a block in Monrovia’s core. As a second library came and went, Library Park matured. The new Public Library, (28,400 square feet, $14.8 million project cost) is framed by two 80’ trees. It transversely spans the site, an axial relationship among its parts.
Libraries are rooted in the Enlightenment: good books shape a good society. They merit honor, a well-lit place; and an unobtrusive blank slate of a reading room that makes a voyaging brethren of readers and their imaginations. This simple imagery pervades the building’s exterior, its walls low against plinths, its roof lifted to let light in by day, and out by night.
The Library’s linearity achieves rich day-lighting through perimeter windows and a clerestoried hall. Cork provides a rapidly renewable, acoustically and sensually soft material, reinforcing the link between this new library and its classic urban prototypes.
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