Reading room

摘要

When BDP project director Chris Harding pointed out at a Bournemouth council meeting that its new library would have a superb vantage point over a canopy of trees, the response came 'What trees?'. It is a tribute to the magical properties of architecture (when it works) that it conjures up unimagined vistas into the world around - lyricism on the doorstep, which, without its revelation through the lens of a new building, would have remained forever hidden. It is especially pleasing when that new revelation is not just for a lucky few but is a gift of a public world to the public itself. Sitting in the epicentre of the Bournemouth library, every user can revel in an unimpeded view of this newly discovered outside. From these vantage points, normally the least privileged within a deep-plan building, the library celebrates and makes the most of Bournemouth's remarkable clashes of topography. The view takes in the myriad varieties of outside: not just the green, still lush in midwinter, but the undulating roofs of the shopping streets, the bus station and the hills beyond.