But he didn't mention the other Delftian library -- the one at the Delft University of Technology. As it turns out, this other Delft library also represents forward-thinking architecture and technology, perhaps like you would expect from an academic university of technology with a school of architecture.
Designed by the Dutch architectural and landscape design firm Mecanoo and built during 1993-1997, the building is concealed by a vast sloping grass roof, with a teepee-shaped structure that simultaneously provides vertical presence, functional purpose, and evokes the windmills that symbolize the Holland landscape. Check out the pictures people have posted of it on Flickr, in both the green of summer (people lounging on the roof) and white of winter (people skiing on the roof).
Other examples of the Mecanoo group's work are available on their website. I was riveted by a short film of a woman speaking in Dutch about a chapel, carrying the maquette through a cemetary to the build site. I did not understand a word of what she said. Then I found an English version of the site and it said the film was about a Roman Catholic Chapel for Saint Mary of the Angels. The maquette looked like a two coffee cans melded into a kidney shaped spiral and topped with a mortar board.
Most of what is written about Mecanoo and TU Delft is in Dutch, so the subject continues to be mysterious even after looking around on the internet, like a window into an alternate universe where people are thinking about some of the same problems, generating completely progressive, original solutions, and throwing our world into the dustbin like leftover coffee grounds.
Which leads me to today's coincidence: the Wikipedia entry for TU Delft reports that the school of architecture burned this morning, May 13, 2008. According to the site, "The fire soon engulfed several floors of the southern wing of the building. [...] Parts of the northern wing have collapsed and it is feared that the rest of the building may follow. [...] It is believed the fire was started by a ruptured water pipe which short circuited a coffee machine [italics are mine] on the sixth floor of the building."
This picture is from the TU Delft website, where they had posted an update at 1900 hours that said the fire was still burning, or at least that's what my Babelfish translation suggested.
Designed by the Dutch architectural and landscape design firm Mecanoo and built during 1993-1997, the building is concealed by a vast sloping grass roof, with a teepee-shaped structure that simultaneously provides vertical presence, functional purpose, and evokes the windmills that symbolize the Holland landscape. Check out the pictures people have posted of it on Flickr, in both the green of summer (people lounging on the roof) and white of winter (people skiing on the roof).
Other examples of the Mecanoo group's work are available on their website. I was riveted by a short film of a woman speaking in Dutch about a chapel, carrying the maquette through a cemetary to the build site. I did not understand a word of what she said. Then I found an English version of the site and it said the film was about a Roman Catholic Chapel for Saint Mary of the Angels. The maquette looked like a two coffee cans melded into a kidney shaped spiral and topped with a mortar board.
Most of what is written about Mecanoo and TU Delft is in Dutch, so the subject continues to be mysterious even after looking around on the internet, like a window into an alternate universe where people are thinking about some of the same problems, generating completely progressive, original solutions, and throwing our world into the dustbin like leftover coffee grounds.
Which leads me to today's coincidence: the Wikipedia entry for TU Delft reports that the school of architecture burned this morning, May 13, 2008. According to the site, "The fire soon engulfed several floors of the southern wing of the building. [...] Parts of the northern wing have collapsed and it is feared that the rest of the building may follow. [...] It is believed the fire was started by a ruptured water pipe which short circuited a coffee machine [italics are mine] on the sixth floor of the building."
This picture is from the TU Delft website, where they had posted an update at 1900 hours that said the fire was still burning, or at least that's what my Babelfish translation suggested.
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