I think the location that I enjoyed shooting most on my trip to Seattle last week was the Seattle Central Library. This library is a testament to contemporary architecture and design. I could spend weeks shooting just this one building — it is my most favorite building I’ve ever photographed.
The building is 11 stories high with dramatic interior ceilings and color splashed throughout to complement the design. Bold red staircases, glowing yellow escalators, an ocean of green chairs, everywhere you go in this library you find more and more eye candy.
Reflections, shadows, glass, lighting that transforms with the day. This building seems made to be photographed — seems designed for photographers. And best of all, not once in a very aggressive four hour or so shooting session there was I ever questioned about my photography in this very open and very public space.
Rem Koolhas was the architect who designed the space. A taxi cab driver that I met in Seattle told me that it cost the City $150 million to build it. According to wikipedia, in 2007, the building was voted #108 on the American Institute of Architects’ list of Americans’ 150 favorite structures in the US. And I can see why. It’s comfortable, functional, and absolutely beautiful.
An article from the Seattle Times on getting to know the library here.
I’ve just started uploading some of the photos I took of the building (I suspect I’ll have several hundred posted over time). If you want to follow my set of images of this grand structure you can check out this set here. The RSS feed for it is here. Seattle Central Library photos sorted by interestingness on Flickr here.
Update: thanks to Ole Begemann for referring me to this TED talk about the design of the Seattle Central Library.