Steven Holl Architects’ latest, the Hunters Point Library is now open. Located on New York’s Long Island, the library brings much needed community space to the neighbourhood, while its concrete structure – painted with aluminium for a slight sparkle – stands out against the Manhattan skyline.
With a minimal footprint of 32,000 square feet, the building rises to a total height of 82 feet and includes three separate sections for children, teens and adults. A staircase, flanked by bookshelves, leads visitors from level to level, finally culminating at a landscape rooftop with a reading garden.
The main interior material palette is a light hued bamboo. This simple materiality accompanies an art installation by Julianne Schwartz , furniture by Eames and Jean Prouvé, a rooftop with tiered seating, an environmental education center and even a dedicated space for teenagers complete with a video gaming area.
After spending nearly a decade in development and with a build cost of $40 million, there has been subject to some criticism. But reviews from architectural critics have been highly favorable thus far.
New York Times architecture critic Michael Kimmelman described the library as being, ‘among the finest and most uplifting public buildings New York has produced so far this century.”
Further to this, Justin Davidson, architecture critic for New York Magazine, writes that he would ‘introduce first-time visitors to the concept of Manhattan at the larger river-facing window. From this vantage point, only a couple dozen feet above the ground, a space that an oligarch might covet but that’s free and open to the public, you can see the sweep of the East River, where Jet Skis and the occasional seaplane have replaced the barge traffic of a century ago; the industrial relics of Gantry Plaza State Park; the idealistic modernism of the United Nations; and the finest skyline that capitalism has wrought.’
Steven Holl says in a press release, ‘It is an honor to imagine and realize this community library, a free open public building where people can interact across generations. We hope it is a gift to this great city and its future children.’
