Brooklyn Public Library, Visual & Performing Arts Library
Brooklyn, NY

The site for the new Visual & Performing Arts Library (VPA) is a triangular wedge bordered by Flatbush Avenue, Lafayette Street and Ashland Place, located at the hart of Brooklyn's new mixed-use Cultural District. The new library responds to the opportunities and complexities of the site and its adjacencies to other cultural institutions like the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), the Mark Morris Dance Center and a new Performing Arts Theater, with a V-shaped structure that is transparent and permeable to invite use while claiming its place in the global media scene as a leader and icon of excellence and innovation.
The building will house reading rooms, archives, galleries, media labs, an auditorium, a theater and a round-the-clock media lounge behind a double wall of glass, with horizontal louvers sandwiched between the window panels to control the amount of light reaching the interior. This glazy skin will be constantly and spontaneously changing as it allows views of the activities inside forming a collage of space, form, people, movement.
Within the courtyard formed by the V-shaped plan would be a flight of steps cascading to a plaza, framing views of the Brooklyn Academy of Music beyond. The Flatbush Avenue facade of the new library would be pulled away, almost like a curtain, to reveal the plaza. The steps could serve as an outdoor amphitheater. This visual flow between interior and exterior space creates environments that seamlessly weave urban context with building program.

Project Title: Brooklyn Public Library, Visual and Performing Arts Library

Site: Brooklyn, NY

Architect: TEN Arquitectos.
Enrique Norten, Bernardo Gómez-Pimienta, Jorge Luis Pérez
Project Team: Fernanda Chandler, Samael Barrios, Carlos Coronel, Andrés
Flores, Cristina Keller, Jennifer Lemasters, Jens Letzel, Luis Enrique Mendoza, Cynthia Morales, Jana Schulz, Elzbieta Szczepanska, Marisa Benabib, Miguel Ríos, Olivia Rojas.

Year of Design: 2002

Year of Construction: 2005-2007 (Projected)

Client: Brooklyn Public Library

Program: Library

Area (approx.): 150,000 sf

Model: Miguel Ríos.

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