The quote below is by Nikos Salingaros ( a really interesting dude); I lifted it from the Wikipedia entry on Building 32.

“An architecture that reverses structural algorithms so as to create disorder—the same algorithms that in an infinitely more detailed application generate living form—ceases to be architecture. Deconstructivist buildings are the most visible symbols of actual deconstruction. The randomness they embody is the antithesis of nature’s organized complexity… Housing a scientific department at a university inside the symbol of its nemesis must be the ultimate irony.”

If I’m reading that quote correctly, Salingaros is saying that a deconstructivist building is a rejection of order and natural self-organizing principles. If I start thinking of one kind of building program that I’d hope would be harmonious with natural order, it’d be a library! Order is really a big piece of what we do in libraries, we organize and contextualize information and knowledge. I wonder if Salingaros would criticize the Seattle Public Library the same way? Aside from the known construction issues with the Stata Center, what might happen if Gehry approached a library the same way?

Well… Gehry did build a library, it is at Princeton University and it looks pretty awesome. I’ll have to visit that one another time… I wonder how the users of the Princeton library feel about their building, and if it is also “the antithesis of nature’s organized complexity”?

First, have a Hudsucker Proxy moment and take a looksee behind the clock in the courtyard. When young patrons misbehave, I’m told they are stuck in this little closet and forced to spend the night…

Below, you can see the front side of the clock glowing in the beautiful courtyard. Look carefully and you’ll see the silhouette of a rowdy child, banished to the clocktower til morning…

There was some fun signage backstage as well. Check this one out- beware of those ‘armed doors’- they can be quite dangerous. Love the red FAIL stamp too!

Also prime finds: the graffiti. At first glance below, you think the pic just says FIRE. Look closer to find ‘joy’, ‘pain’, and ‘death’. Just another day at the library.

Here’s a nice drawing of a farm…

And who knows what is going on here!