Details on the final design for the New Central Library were released on Tuesday and the city says it has developed a unique and inspiring space for Calgarians to gather.
The three-sided curved building will be built just east of City Hall, on Block 127 in East Village, and house about 600,000 books.
The new facility will cost $245M and the building will occupy about 278,000 square feet of space. About 80 percent will be public space and the other 20 percent will be used by staff.
“The New Central Library has been a long time coming, and moving forward with this project was a key part of my platform when I was first elected,” said Mayor Naheed Nenshi. “When City Council created the Community Investment Fund in 2011, we also created a mechanism to finalize the funding of a New Central Library that will serve the needs of a growing population now and into the future. I’m immensely proud of what we’ve achieved together.”
The LRT tracks will be encapsulated to allow the vertical development of the site and will remain active during construction, an engineering first for the city.
“The tunnel is an amazing challenge but we called it a probletunity, it’s a problem and an opportunity, because you can see from the geometry of the building, it’s a very curvilinear form and we had to develop a curving structure to encapsulate the LRT and that then formed the geometry of the building above so not only do we have to follow that line, it also inspired the shape of the building,” said Rob Adamson, Architect.
Commuters will get a front-row seat to the action during the 16 to 18 months of construction.
Construction is already underway and the New Central Library is expected to open to the public in 2018.
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