The Library that Ate Prague

[halloweenjack]

The Beeb is reporting on the award-winning design for the Czech National Library that seems to absorb the national library's collection rather than house it. Czech President Vaclav Klaus has threatened (jokingly, his spokesman says) to block construction with his own body. The MMORPG City of Heroes LiveJournal community is comparing the structure to the game's archvillain amoeba Hamidon.

Here's a better picture of the architectural model and here's a PDF of the original proposal. One of the interesting things about the proposal is that it includes a robot book paging system, wherein all of the library's collection is housed in hot pink plastic bins that can be retrieved automatically when a patron requests that item. I think that this type of system has been tried before, and that it didn't work out too well, but I'm not sure where or when.

[I also submitted this to Boing Boing]

Comments

Ewww

[charles-d-ward.livejournal.com]

It doesn't mesh very well with the rest of the beauty that is Prague.
I think I disapprove.

Re: Ewww

[(Anonymous)]

It's like some tchotchke that you buy because you think it's cute, and a month later you stick it in the hall closet, and a year later you pull it out, think "What the hell was I thinking?" and put it in a garage sale or on eBay. Except that it's a big damn building.