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| photo from the Buffalo News |
At 5 a.m. on July 11th, a drunk driver rear-ended a car in front of the Frank E. Merriweather Library crashing it through the front wall and demolishing the ventilation and cooling systems. From the photo in the Buffalo News it looks like the rear ended car ended up completely inside the building.
The good news is that no one in either car or in the library or on the sidewalk was hurt. Additional good news is that the car crashed into the air conditioner and not the books. The bad news was that the library was closed for a month during the prime summer attendance season. But, to end on a positive note, the air conditioning is now fixed and the library is open for the last few weeks of summer.
Thanks to the press I learned that the Merriweather is not any old library branch, when it opened in 2006 it was first new branch in the Buffalo-Erie System in 20 years. It is loved and appreciated by the members of its east side neighborhood - check out this video and feel the love - that stop by daily to use the computers, read and work. One man said it simply, “we’re blessed to have it in our community.”
But what makes the library really different is its design. The building is created from six interconnected circles that “suggest” a traditional African Village. Architect Robert Traynham Coles, also shown on the video, chose the plan to create a feeling of community where people share different spaces. A domed skylight on one room allows sunlight to flood the space, avoiding both gloom and florescent lights. Tile mosaics and carved doors add warmth and personality.
I’ve seen a lot of different libraries in the last 8 months but what I like about the Merriweather is that Coles came up with a fresh, relevant design that meets the practical needs of the library while INSPIRING the community.
The good news is that no one in either car or in the library or on the sidewalk was hurt. Additional good news is that the car crashed into the air conditioner and not the books. The bad news was that the library was closed for a month during the prime summer attendance season. But, to end on a positive note, the air conditioning is now fixed and the library is open for the last few weeks of summer.
Thanks to the press I learned that the Merriweather is not any old library branch, when it opened in 2006 it was first new branch in the Buffalo-Erie System in 20 years. It is loved and appreciated by the members of its east side neighborhood - check out this video and feel the love - that stop by daily to use the computers, read and work. One man said it simply, “we’re blessed to have it in our community.”
But what makes the library really different is its design. The building is created from six interconnected circles that “suggest” a traditional African Village. Architect Robert Traynham Coles, also shown on the video, chose the plan to create a feeling of community where people share different spaces. A domed skylight on one room allows sunlight to flood the space, avoiding both gloom and florescent lights. Tile mosaics and carved doors add warmth and personality.
I’ve seen a lot of different libraries in the last 8 months but what I like about the Merriweather is that Coles came up with a fresh, relevant design that meets the practical needs of the library while INSPIRING the community.
Coles’s commitment to building the right library for the neighborhood jumps right out at me and reminds me of seeing Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie style houses for the first time (Buffalo also has one on those). Wright's new, modern style sought to complement its surrounding and completely broke with traditional materials and design. He was not afraid to design homes that belonged where they were built.
African American architects were rare in 1940 America when Coles fell in love with the work and pursued his education until he graduated from MIT with a Masters Degree in 1955. He has been pushing the envelope and ignoring naysayers ever since. He has contributing to Buffalo for more than 40 years and won the American Institute of Architects’ Whitney M. Young Jr. citation in 1981 for his contributions to social justice.
Coles’s design goal is clear in at the Merriweather: to create buildings that provide positive influences to a community. “I tend to look to the community to be served as opposed to building the greatest architectural monument. I am an advocate architect,” Coles said in an interview.
If I could wave my magic society wand I would turn drunk drivers into advocate architects with Coles’s commitment - imagine what a beautiful world they could make.
African American architects were rare in 1940 America when Coles fell in love with the work and pursued his education until he graduated from MIT with a Masters Degree in 1955. He has been pushing the envelope and ignoring naysayers ever since. He has contributing to Buffalo for more than 40 years and won the American Institute of Architects’ Whitney M. Young Jr. citation in 1981 for his contributions to social justice.
Coles’s design goal is clear in at the Merriweather: to create buildings that provide positive influences to a community. “I tend to look to the community to be served as opposed to building the greatest architectural monument. I am an advocate architect,” Coles said in an interview.
If I could wave my magic society wand I would turn drunk drivers into advocate architects with Coles’s commitment - imagine what a beautiful world they could make.
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