can you spot the library?
30Nov07
if you’ve ever wanted to feel like an ant, head to the library in either cardiff or kansas missouri: rather than using a traditional front to the building, both have decided to turn the premises into giant bookshelves, creating an extremely surreal experience for passers by.
(photos from flickr are linked to the user’s account)
cardiff public library
apparently this is only a temporary feature at cardiff library until the new building is completed. if it was up to me the place would stay like this permanently.
kansas city library
local residents were asked to nominate influential books that represent kansas city, humungous versions of the winning nominations were then used as the exterior of the library car-park.
Filed under: architecture, bizarre, just brilliant, photo, surreal | 159 Comments
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that library is in downtown kansas city, which isn’t in kansas, bud.
Very cool.. choice of books might say alot about the community too. I’d love to see that here where I live but it’d make a great facade for a book store as well!
“if it was up to me the place would stay like this permanently.”
Even with that Dan Brown book? But if they change out the covers every year that would be nice.
Pretty cool! The authors of the books are pretty lucky too!
This is awesome. It means there is type large enough for me to see.
Pretty cool stuff
I can! I can spot it! I did it!
Now that is cool.
Dude, where’s my library?
Love it! Especially Kansas, where the covers were picked by the locals. Wonderful way to dress up a building.
Is that Cardiff, Wales? Man, what a lineup of crap books. Outclassed by Kansas City, that’s got to sting.
I see it!
It’s certainly eye-catching, isn’t it? How clever.
This is splendid.
How come an idea so relevant and simple never occurred to anyone so far
Thanks for adding it.
They should have alphabetized them. This bugs me way more than I would have guessed!
This is brilliant, brilliant stuff.
How can they make this temporary? Never in my life have I seen a more compelling argument for the beauty of a library.
To keep it fresh, perhaps they should eventually show a mix of both popular and classic books. If it changes on a regular basis, it might spur efficacy in the community both from readers and non-readers. This is very iconic and classic stuff… I suspect it might be as effective as Franklin’s first idea if they keep it fresh.\
I am crossing my fingers as it were.
-A
That is an excellent idea =)
Figures! I don’t see The Banjo Players Must Die on that shelf. Grrrrrr.
That is toooooo cool!!!
Would love to see this in real
Pretty cool although having Dan Brown in Cardiff there ruins it a bit.
ALL buildings could look this cool with a little imagination…why take it down??? Love it!
As a librarian, it’s always nice to see that someone was thinking about publicity!
Kansas City is in Missouri, and we love our library parking garage. The building is an old bank building, restored beautifully too.
brilliant idea. we must educate people to love reading
I work just down the street from that library (in fact we meet in front of it when we’re doing fire drills) and I always think how cool it is every time I drive past it.
Later
Mark
Awesome art, wonder how long it took to complete, and if they needed the rights to do so?
Doesn’t it bother anyone else that Kansas City is in Missouri and not in Kansas? lol. The library design is cool though. Wish more libraries would adopt this. It would make me go to the library more often.
Sorry to ruin your fanatasy, but these pics are fakes. Notice the silver car has a German license plate? Gee Dorothy, we’re not in Kansas anymore!
Old news is old.
…and wrong. Boring.
doesn’t cardiff and kansas start with capital letters?
Just to echo what was posted earlier – the second library shown here is in Kansas City, Missouri. A common mistake made from those not familiar with the region.
KC, MO is the larger city while KC, KS is much smaller.
Digital Fortress was the worst book ever
The Kansas City where this library is located is in Missouri, but to state “Kansas City is in Missouri” is inaccurate, since Kansas City is also in Kansas. Just FYI for those not living in the area.
This is wonderful! What a great way to share, and to pull a community together. Someone should be thinking of manufacturing these things, to get the costs down and the distribution up?
Great advertising idea for those books. I wonder whether the authors of those books paid for being exposed so well to lots of passers-by, or their books were simply picked. Anyway, nice findings
Excellent. Hope it inspires people to go to a library more often and read some books. I mean, there are so many great books out there, grab some.
This is awesome! Thanks for sharing!
What’s this, a library for ants? It should be at least….3 times that size!
The Kansis library let themselves down by “faking” book covers all the same size for their facade; ‘The Lord of The Rings’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ are NOT the same size. However Cardiff let themselves down but choosing rubbish literature in vulgar commercialised covers. But then perhaps this is a fair statment on the state of modern literary output and commerce.
As an architect I appreciate this idea in a temporary format as here (I have seen ‘penguin classics’ vertical shuttering before) but I would have grave reservations about what would happen to such a facade if it were made permanant. And I have to add; only in America!
There is a Kansas City, Missouri and a Kansas City, Kansas. They are right next to each other. I think the library that is being discussed is in Kansas City, Missouri but both Kansas and Missouri have a Kansas City: See map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Kansas+City,+MO,+USA&ie=UTF8&ll=39.107686,-94.609108&spn=0.068466,0.156555&z=12&iwloc=addr&om=0
Very nice, I wish my house looked like that
Digital fortress was a dire piece of shit you know…
why the hate against Dan Brown suddenly? he’s had huge success and is no doubt hugely influential over many new writers. Infact, he’s in the same boat as J.K Rowling – great story telling, dodgy writing, huge success, huge influence. Leave him in there and screw all the non subjective haters. Can’t wait to see this when i go back at xmas.
Dan x
I think the “book wall” is just the greatest! So many ways artists can breathe new life onto old wallsbuildings and so great to look at!
I live in KC and i used to walk past the downtown library and it was always fun to walk past it becasue it just is a need design thing. KC has alot of this kind of stuff.
-chris
Yeah, I live in Kansas City, and I gotta say, there is a sizeable difference between the Kansas and Missouri side. The aforementioned library is downtown, on the Missouri side. Still, pretty awesome nonetheless.
December 1, 2007 From Sandra/ NYC
We’re not in Kansas anymore! THE ULTIMATE COOL! Seeing such an endeavor goes a long way in restoring my faith in humanity! Why waste such creative genius on a “temporary” basis. STAY COOL…it”s time for YOU ALL to rethink your architectural plans and seriously consider making this PERMANENT!!!
I’m really excited that I had the unexpected opportunity to see this extraordinary adventure! I received this tidbit via the Long Island University/Palmer School of Library Science list-serv.
Thank you.
Sandra
Just to clarify there is a Kansas City in both Missouri and Kansas. However, yes, the photo is from MO.
What’s a book?
i kind of feel like this is tacky. i might be wrong though.
Kirk: You’ll find it in all the literature of the era: Dan Brown, Patricia Cornwall, and Sidney Sheldon.
Spock: Ah. The giants.
Books are the work of the devil. See more info here. Godly Site
Yes that’s Cardiff, Wales. The building is actually a load of portacabins put together and is there whilst they are building the new library which will be in a shopping centre which has just started development so it will be there for a while (till 2009 at least).
And if any one watches torchwood the building in the background is the one jack was standing on in one of the first episodes.
iCan’t spot the library, there are too many books.
Dude i live in cardiff i will get you some additional shots if you like.
I remember hearing in cardiff that they are going to keep it and that they have before changed the book ends.
That’s absolutely fantastic!
All libraries should be fronted like that – drive it home that there’s something special about books – that they’re important!
Just pray that they don’t go medieval everywhere… can you imagine how they’d decorate the front of Anne Summers? Although it would certainly make the high streets far more interesting!
Maybe it would even help people to take pride in their cities?
They could’ve used that money to buy real books.
Pssh i saw it right away. This was easy.
Wah!! The architect sure got an unique idea for library building design.. Nice one.
cool!
Gah… All the people who keep noting that Kansas City is partially in Missouri… It doesn’t matter!
No one said anything about States, “head to the library in either cardiff or kansas” (From the original post)
Cardiff is a city. Kansas is also a city. End of story.
As for the libraries, I am disappointed that Cardiff intends this to be temporary.
A German Liscence plate does not make a photo fake. First, the photo is of the library in, if someone noticed accurately, Wales? Isn’t entirely possible for someone from Germany to be in Wales? Second, proving the first, I know an American soldier whose car has a German liscense plate, he is now stationed in Arizona and has not yet changed his registration, so it isn’t impossible for one foreign car to be caught in the pic.
There are two Kansas Cities, one in Missouri and one in Kansas. The Missouri one is the larger one, and they’re right across the river from each other.
Wow! This just goes to show how creative people can be. A library doesn’t always have to dull an boring!
That is very cool, never seen anything like it.
I live in Cardiff, and guess what, adjacent to that lovely (temporary) pile of books is the famous Bute street, full of prostitutes and immigrants.
God I love my city.
Seriously though we’re living in a shithole.
I live in Blue Springs, a suburb of Kansas City. The library is just one of Missouri’s prime examples of art. We take pride in our art, fountains, and barbque. (Nelson Art Gallery) (The Plaza) (Jack Stack) ect.
just outta curiousity, which didn’t kill the cat since the cat was framed
did you take those photos yourself?
Wonderful idea! Perhaps not for every library, but then who wants everything to be the same, anyway. An idea that crosses my mind: With all the new tech focus, it is possible for a library building’s facade to be a screen with a change of books simply projected on it.
And excerpts from the books could be featured. Can you imagine a “Lady Chaterly’s Lover” excerpt? Or perhaps as in our new library in SLC, designed by MOSHE SAFDIE, the entire building’s exterior is glass and we can see books and stacks through the walls. WE LOVE OUR LIBRARY HERE, AND MR. SAFDIE IS ONE OF OUR NEW HEROES. Congratulations to Kansas City, Kansouri!
@28
they are not fake, the picture your looking at is in wales, not the US.
Here are some more from Leiden, The Netherlands.
http://photo.shoq.com/daily-photo/787/What-to-read
http://photo.shoq.com/daily-photo/788/What-to-read
This was also temporary. All the books you can see there have something to do with the history of the city.
This was photographed in UK , see the car plate numbers on yellow.
OK, once and for all: customarily, when one says “Kansas City,” “Kansas City, Missouri” is meant, not the much, much smaller cross-stateline neighboring town called “Kansas City, Kansas.” The metropolitan suburbs spread out in all directions, in Missouri and Kansas, but the historic and true center is in Missouri, with the Federal Reserve Bank, for instance. Did you know, by the way, that Missouri is the only state in the union to be the seat of 2 of the only 12 Federal Rederve Bank districts, viz. St. Louis and Kansas City? (see http://www.federalreserve.gov/otherfrb.htm)
This looks way much better than the library in my vilage.
TO: Startlingmoniker,
As to being in alphabetical order, have you ever gone to the store to buy soup?
A;sp, it’s obvious that this is in KC MO.
Kansas has no need for a library as, it requires thought and, there is no thinking allowed in creationville.
If someone tried to think, they might fall off of the edge of the flat state.
this would actually get people to go to the library. Most libraries look like mortuaries with a lot of windows.
Really fun idea, though it pretty much eclipses the fact that libraries are much more than warehouses full of books. Libraries are about access to information, whatever format it’s in.
It’s obviously Kansas City, Missouri; if it was Kansas City, Kansas, they would have just put up a dozen copies of the Bible…
Dear John,
I’m so sorry to see that one of these two buildings is only temporary.
What a great way to let everyone know there’s a library here!
The Kansas City library with the classics on display is good — however, I’m even more attracted to the Cardiff library because of all the new best sellers displayed.
Perhaps you could get some help from the publishers to change the covers out each year to advertise their new best sellers.
It would be great advertizing for them, if they would be sold on the idea.
I’m charmed by the pictures.
Judy in Texas
A) Way cool.
B) Way cooler.
C) Enough, already, about KC,MO vs. KC,KS, OK?
D) I don’t think it would be nearly as good as a regular thing, as for a special occasion, but there could be all sorts of special occasions — an author’s 200th birthday, or a significant anniversary, &c.
E) It reminds me a whole lot of the stage set my high school (CVHS, Corvallis, Oregon) used for its production of “Inherit the Wind”
This is a great idea and should be left permanently, with modifications to rotate every month to show the bestsellers.
Not exactly the same but a book as library facade nevertheless, and over ten years old now…
http://www.a-r-m.com.au/project.php?projectID=18&categoryID=3
In regard to Francis’ comment about KC, I think that when people mention KC, they are often referring to the entire KC metro area, which would include both Missouri and Kansas. Also, anyone who thinks Kansas is flat probably has never been to KC, which is filled with beautiful hills, both on the Missouri and Kansas sides.
Cool library by the way!!!
Hey , I took the first photo (not a fake) and blogged about it here and here (it’s from my flickr account).
Any chance of a link
I was pretty appaled by the choice of books in Cardiff, sadly they were chosen by a poll of the users of the library. That’ll teach me for not visiting the library in years!
The areas surrounding the library are some of the most dangerous places to be in KCMO,and probably in the nation.I did’t know this existed. I have forbid my driving children from going ANY where near kcmo or some of kck.We no longer patron the museums, plaza, downtown, zoo etc. Black on black crime is terrible, violent ,senseless, and tragic. We have lost so many beautiful people. Drive by shooters, murders, etc.. This city has lost it’s collective mind…..Belinda
rhys: pnawn da. sorry mate, i didn’t realise you’d blogged about it. the photo already links to your flickr account, do you want me to change it so it links to your blog?
Belinda; I think it is tragic that you would rob your children of the amazing culture this city provides. I frequent the museum and have never whitnessed any crime or violence. In fact, these areas of the city are becoming more affluent as art and culture become more popular among the rich. I seriously hope that your post on this blog is a joke.
As for those of you that insist on pointing out that the library (and a large portion of Kansas City) is located in Missouri and not in Kansas; you are missing the bigger picture of this post and should take a moment to reflect on how unintelligent your comments sound. If it had to be said, it certainly only needed to be said once. I also suspect that the majority of you are from MO and believe that Kansas City, and everything in it, belongs to Missourians; you are sorely mistaken.
Dear Rachel, You are so correct. We are missing so many wonderful things about KC. I was born there and so were some of my children. The drive by shootings and murders are breaking my heart. Remember the 2-3 year old that was sleeping in bed and killed by a drive by. Remember the guy on the bike that was killed for FUN? How about the lady found in her parked red car a couple of weeks ago murdered .I am an artist.My daughter has a degree in art ,but I wont let my kids attend the art institute.My friend was stabbed in KCK last august in her apartment .I miss the museums, but I dont want to be a blurp on the nightly news.Remember the lady that was raped in the plaza parking lot at lunch time a while back? I’ll pass on the lights too. I know that I am missing great stuff, but bad stuff too. Thanks Rachel!!
Getting back to the books:
Can you imagine an entire city that looked like this? The facades of the libraries would be books; the facades of the bodegas would be fruits, veggies and flowers; the supermarkets would be cans of soup (a la Warhol) and toilet paper; the facades of the hospital would be…uh…body parts? Anyway, that would be so cool!
I really like this pictures of Libraries made of image of books.
My compliments who posted it ,becuase i am books lover
Hi Deputy.
I didn’t realise the photo actually linked to the original at my Flickr account. It’s been viewed 8,000+ times so far and it would have been cool to have them all drop by at my blog as well as it would put into context why I took the photo in the first place.
I wouldn’t mind a link to my blog, but it’s no big deal now as I guess the Digg effect is dying down. How has your server/hosting coped and out of interest how did you manage to find the photo in the first place?
Actually, the Kansas City Library picture is the parking garage. The library is in an old bank building across the street.
I live in KC and to the bottom right of that Fahrenheit 451 book, there is a bullet hole. A lady shot a dude in the back for cheating on her. My buddy was right there after it happend saw the dude layin there and the lady being arrested.
The design on those buildings probably make ppl go in and read some books, which is good
Idiots! It’s in Wales! In the UK! What’s this about Kansas City? Good Lord, you people do go on and on.
Wow, I’ve walked past the Cardiff library LOADS and never realised what it ws, I kinda assumed it was some kinda dvert or something :S
Feel a little foolish now, lol!
I really like this pictures of books.
I don’t see the library. I only see gigantic books. Is the library crushed underneath?
To Anon (comment #95) and all the other folks insisting that the library is in the UK…
Didn’t your teachers ever teach you to read the instructions???
The blog post clearly says that there are two libraries pictured here. One is stated as being in Cardiff, which is in the UK, so no one is trying to steal one of the UK’s brilliantly designed temporary fronts and claim it for their own.
The last two pictures are of a different library’s parking garage, one that is in Kansas City. These pictures are not fakes. You can find information about it in the official project summary, a mention of it on this news release on the library’s own website, and a general description of it here.
Also, there are more photos of the Kansas City Public Library parking garage here.
Is this what they refer to as canonization of literature?
My my… Now I remember why I don’t feel too bad moving away from Kansas City 2 years ago: I guess I’m “unintelligent” (comment 87, Rachel) and a big coward (comments 85 and 88, Belinda Willy)? I can tell the anti-Missouri prejudices of the Johnson County crowd (Kansas suburb) are alive and well. Oh well… Silicon Valley has been good to me.
cool stuff
I’m in Florida, but I’m thinking road trip.
Very clever idea, and I wonder how many expensive “fender bender” accidents have taken place in front of these scenes.
Very cool. That had to cost a small fortune, I would think.
LOOK AT THE SECOND PICTURE.
Enlarge it, lighten it and tell me which side of the car the man’s steering wheel is on!
And there’s your answer.
And I totally agree every library should advertise themselves like this! Its wonderful and eyecatching, attractive!… they can rotate the books featured as time goes!
What, no Heinlein love, Kansas City? A good number of his books are based on your tow, and he was even born there? Who better to represent Kansas City. Oh, that’s right…Lord of the Rings.
The best part of Return of the King was when Frodo goes through that spooky cave to fight Shelob, which happened to be right underneath Kansas City…midwestern idiots.
This is amazing!
What does Catch-22 have to do with Kansas City?
This reminds me of a building in Sydney, Australia. It’s visible from the top of the AMP tower, near Hyde Park. The side of it is painted (or papered?) to look like a bookshelf.
that is a great design- they should leave it up!
I’d like to see something similar done with an adult book store.