Seattles 412,000-sq-ft "book bag" has been cheered as outrageous architecture and reviled as architectural outrage. Rem Koolhaas, the Dutch "starchitect" for the $154-million library, reminiscent of a stack of books wrapped in a fishnet, calls the building "obscenely beautiful." But the team plotting the citys latest page turnerthe most gawked at and talked about volume since Frank Gehrys Experience Music Project down the streetis largely deaf to the cacophony. Their energies are focused on substantially finishing the obscenely eccentric and eight-month-overdue building by March 9.
The Seattle Central Library has already shattered complacency, as intended. "When something stirs people up, it is doing what it is supposed to do," says Joshua Ramus, Koolhaas partner on the job in the New York City office of the Office of Metropolitan Architecture, Rotterdam. Ramus is confident people will like the library "formly," once they have experienced the dramatic interiors.