Can you have that much fun at a library?

Those squiggles are all letters!

Herzog and De Meuron look pretty intense but I bet they were lego masters in elementary school.  You know, the kind of kids that work for days in silent concentration in the corner and eventually reveal a masterpiece that makes the rest of the class gasp in awe?  Their new library, actually it is The Information, Communication and Media Center (ICMC),  at The Technical University of Cottbus in Germany, looks like it could have been designed with legos if they came in circles and spirals.  

It is another one of those brand new fun libraries, capital FUN, that makes the rest of the libraries look uptight.  I’m not sure if it’s the seven story glass exterior wall imprinted with letters from different alphabets, the bright red, dark blue, magenta, green and yellow color scheme or the giant, colorful spiral staircase that rises through its center or the combination of all these features that create the delightful aura, I just know it’s one of those buildings that make you want to stand in the middle with your mouth open.

  

I told you it was fun!

The library cost a cool 29 million Euros to build and holds 900,000 books.  Cottbus is not far from Berlin, very close to the Poland’s border.  Herzog and DeMeuron is a Swiss architecture firm that has designed four building in the United States (there is a map on their website) but none of them bring on a smile like this library, I’ll keep my fingers crossed.