Making Public Space Where Everyone Feels Welcome
The well known Canadian architect Jack Diamond is designing the Mariinsky Theatre, the new opera house in historic St. Petersburg. The theatre is the first new home for Russian opera since the age of the czars. Diamond calls the theatre "the crown of his career."
Closer to home and more accessible to those of us with kids, debt, homework, laundry and half an hour to spare, is the Maria A. Shchuka branch of the Toronto Public Library, also a product of the work of Diamond Schmitt Architects.
Like the world's great cultural centers, Toronto Public Library branches feature wonderful examples of public architecture, albeit on a much smaller scale. We have something else in common. Like the world's great cultural centers, we have lots of visits. To put it in context, 8.8 million people visited the Louvre in Paris last year and there were 19 million visits to Toronto Public Library branches.
Toronto Public Library branches have been built and well used by successive generations of Torontonians. Architect Eden Smith of the arts and crafts school designed the Beaches, Wychwood and High Park branches. Raymond Moriyama, who designed the Bata Shoe Museum, also designed the Toronto Reference Library and the North York Central Library. Describing the renovation of the Bloor/Gladstone branch, Lisa Rochon, architectural critic for The Globe and Mail, described the newly renovated library as "… a major civic landmark, a historic Beaux Arts library (1913) being forced into a lively dialogue with a contemporary glass jewel."
What do we hope to achieve through well designed libraries? The simple answer is accessible public space where everyone feels welcome; space for planned and spontaneous meetings, conversations and events; space to read, study, work or relax; space in which to connect with the world or escape from it. As Lisa Rochon eloquently stated, "… the library gives us permission to hunker down by a window or a fireplace, disconnect from the hammering distractions of everyday life, and get on with what has to be learned, and contemplated.” She understands – life is about the big events and crowning achievements, but it is also about smaller everyday things; in a nutshell: balance.
Tell us what you like about your local library or how we can make the service better. When you visit your library, what services do you use? How could we make the space more welcoming and useful?
2 thoughts on “Making Public Space Where Everyone Feels Welcome”
Libraries are key to building local identity and community. Libraries should (and generally do) contain local reference material and nurture local history and geography including having a person on staff who is knowledgeable of the area.
A related service and resource that deserves to be better known is the Walking Historical Tours of neighbourhoods like Deer Park and Lawrence Park. These should be expanded to cover more areas like Leaside and Don Mills.
Keep up the good work
Thanks Geoff, this is great feedback. Don’t know if you’ve had a chance to fill out our survey to help us develop the new strategic plan, but if you could, that would be great. You can access it toward the bottom of the main strategic plan page of the website http://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/stratplan2012
And if you know of anyone else who would be into providing their feedback, let them know about the survey.