 Thank you all for coming out tonight and, you know, as we mentioned, we'll try to get you out of here in time for the Warriors game. Let's have a, you know, a nice, lively debate and discussion about trends in modern library architecture design and hopefully it'll be fun and informative evening. Why don't we start with John? And here's kind of just going to be a fun question. It's back to the future and you get into the DeLorean to go back in time to 1996 in April. And your new assignment with the Chronicle is to review the new main library. What's your opinion? I was actually a reporter at the Chronicle then. I was at the City Hall Bureau, but I had a real interest in buildings and architecture and things. That's what led to the post I have now. And honestly, my impression of it coming out of the gate was the books were not on view. Those of you who remember the library when it opened, Kathy was involved in this. She walked in. There was the big dramatic area in the center, the central space. I was covering Willie Brown at the time and the National Conference of Mayors, or the U.S. Conference of Mayors came to town, so it was a perfect party venue for Willie Brown to welcome his peers when he was a new mayor. And honestly, what I remember was coming in and like just kind of looking around and not being hit by the presence of books. There was the dramatic atrium. There was kind of the approach, but a sense that the old notion of libraries is kind of where you lose yourself in books was not strong enough. That was actually, if I had been the critic, that's what I would have commented on at the time. I think that in terms of, and I think we'll be talking about this, we were talking about this before. The upper spaces, really interesting rooms, interesting how the different floors are spatially differentiated. So you kind of feel like, if you use the library regularly, you kind of know you're on the third floor, the fifth floor, things like that. And then the exterior, and Kathy went through this, was this real interesting time of modernism, classicism, postmodernism, historicism, strong attention to context, kind of pushing and pulling. And so that's a piece that even now I haven't resolved myself on. Some days I really like how it all fits together. Some days I don't think it has the depth I'd like. James Freed, who, with PayCobb Freed, were the design architects, or however the definition worked, I mean, it's very much part of the paid. So I'm sorry for a rambling answer, but it's tricky. You kind of want to be, the easiest buildings to review are the ones that knock you out, or the ones that you want to blow up. Once everybody's far away, and it's all carefully, those are the easy ones to do, because you have these strong opinions pro or con. And this library has always been one I've kind of wrestled with a little bit. Having said that, I think that after the move in, I think the staff did a good job at retooling the spaces, bringing books in so you walk in off the Civic Center plaza, and there are the new releases and things, which I don't think that was in the original mix there. I don't know what that space was, but it was just kind of, there was a good job at kind of, for all the changes you want to library to reflect, for all the community spaces, computers, training facilities, and things. You also want a presence of books. So there are other things, but I've been going on too long. I think those are very good comments. And the main in 96 was it really started a different revolution in how libraries are perceived as far as what they do. And I think you had a very good point in mentioning that it's not just a big repository for books. So that being said, how has your opinion changed today? I mean, now we have libraries that are destinations unto themselves beyond just their contents, their architectural icons, their place-making, their community spaces, and they have a different sense of relationship to the public. How's your opinion different today? I think you're right. I mean, I think this one really did, it kind of picked up on trends going on, but then pushed them a lot further. The whole notion of putting a lot of time and money and energy into building a new downtown library. That was ahead of the Seattle Library. That was ahead of the Denver Library. I wasn't thinking of the Denver Library. I was thinking, see, they've all gone, Salt Lake City. Salt Lake City, Minneapolis has added one in the last decade. I mean, so right there, I think this is kind of a fascinating building of kind of wrestling with that. How do we build, when the old main was built or when the Carnegie branch libraries were built, you knew what a library was. It was a temple to aspirational culture with lots of books inside and lots of wood tables and things. And now there's such a push and pull of all the different roles it plays, the social roles it plays, good and bad, all the tension and everything. So I think this really stands up as kind of seeing this whole new world heading in a new direction. And I think certain parts of it have just done wonderfully. I think the history center up on the 6th floor, 5th floor, manages to work as it doesn't feel like a traditional library space, but it feels so much like what it's supposed to be, which is you can kind of penetrate into the history and the culture of the city as deeply as you want, great librarians helping you, things like that. So I think it's worked out well. Okay. So, Kathy, it's been 20 years. Well, longer than that, I don't think about it. I mean, we won the project in 1989, right before the earthquake. Wow. And it's, I mean, there were three basic teams that were interviewed and my firm, SMWM, was associated with the pay office. But, you know, I think there's some things that you pointed out that are true. I think the idea, what the building was really struggling to portray something very different about libraries, but also to love and honor the book. And it was very much the idea, I mean, the whole notion of this building is basically this L-shaped piece that was called the Occupied Wall, between which there's a big light well that infuses the building with light. And then the sort of each floor plate was intended to be something different. So there was this real duality of the way the building was conceived to say libraries are bookends for the past and bridges to the future. And that was when Bill Clinton was president and everybody's big bridge to the future, everything. And, you know, we're a city of bridges and there are a lot of bridges in this building and so that was a kind of cool metaphor. But you have to remember that this building was radical in terms of a library for San Francisco. And really when you think about, when I think about all the great libraries that I love in the world, it was radical compared to them. It's like the Boston Public Library, the New York Public Library, the British Library. All these buildings were very much about, or the Bibliotech Nacional, the old one, which was, which is one of the most wonderful ones or the Bibliotech San Genevieve, which was really the grandmother of all these libraries was about being in the world of books only. And so this was very much intended to be a place which led a different way of working for people, which I think is very legitimate. To me, the overwhelming great thing about this building is, I mean, there are many things, but the light in it is just extraordinary and it is, you don't have to turn on an electric light, basically, most of the time. It's filled with different places for people to be. So you can be studying at the end of the library. You can be in one of the great rooms in the corners. You can be on the floor with this sense of community that was very important. And one of the things that we felt very strongly about was that it should be a reading room. That was a radically backward idea because, and there was a lot of resistance from the city librarian about having a reading room. They're kind of passe, we don't have them. But the place up at the top where there's that great space, this was the periodical area at that point, hangs above and it says this is a reading room. This is about being in, it's more than a nod to the history of great libraries. The things that we remember about them are those reading rooms. So, I mean, to me that's really the explanation of it. The exterior of the building is nothing that I care for particularly. I don't. I don't. I mean, really, seriously, it's a post-modern building. You have to remember this community was completely divided about what this building should be. There was a group called San Francisco Tomorrow. I'm sure they still exist. Which, A, didn't want, they don't exist. They do, didn't want a new library. A, B, wanted some sort of simulacrum of some other thing that was a history, a historical, I don't know what. Then there were people in the architectural community who were enlightened who said we want a modern building. So, I think Jim Fried, and I take no credit for the outside whatsoever, said, you know, and he was also working on this project in Washington. Holocaust Museum? No, no, the Holocaust was right at the same time. But it was this, it's called the Federal Triangle. And it has this Reagan building, and it's very, very post-modern. And for a modernist like him to buy into that style is surprising, I think. I think it could have been much more witty about being what it is. I think it could have been more ironic possibly, but ironic buildings, they're not such a great thing either. So, I mean, it looks okay. But when you come into this building, you're not in that world. It's a very different thing. And the city, the librarians, everybody who's lived with us for 20 years should be congratulated and hugged because the building looks so beautiful. When you come in here, you feel welcome. It's beautifully maintained. It's filled with life. There, I don't know how many languages. 47 languages here. The Kids Library, which we actually designed, that's how I designed that, is filled with kids and grown-ups to helping them. And I mean, this is really a wonderful thing to have here. And I think it's, so, you might not like the outside, but you don't have to use the outside, really. You know? And it fits in. Yeah, and the outside is Civic Center. The inside is what the library is about. It's the whole console. Yeah, and I just think it's so, I was here recently before talking to some young people about public buildings and making community. This building makes a different kind of community. And the ferry building is a project I love more because, and it was my project, but it also, both of these were about creating common ground in a very diverse community. And I think both of them do it really, really well. Of course, you get to eat at the ferry building, which is great. Thank you, Kathy. Martha, Kathy spoke about how this library was a radical change for the time. And really, at that time, it re-envisioned what a library did and how it behaved in the community. How do you see libraries evolving to catch up with the changes that are currently occurring? One of the things that you can see in this library was the addition of the teen center, the mix. And that's a dramatically different concept that wasn't even envisioned at the time that this library was built. How do you see these current trends influencing how we design libraries in the future? Well, that's a big question. I think that some of the things that we've seen in our recent projects is really how the library is really a center for interaction for whatever community you're in, whether it's a small branch library like we were involved in or at a much bigger civic scale like the main library here, that as opposed to the last century model, which was all about escaping into the books, I love that description. This is all about finding a place to come together in a lot of circumstances. So I think one of the things that is described is the library becoming the third place between your house and your work. And that third place in our culture right now is a very interesting spot because tremendous changes over the last 20 years. We were remembering that 15 years ago, there wasn't even an iPod, let alone a mobile device. I mean, everything has changed so rapidly and we're so connected in different ways and knowledge available in different ways that I think one of the trends is really that the library is a place of coming together in community and rubbing shoulders and learning new things and engaging in your neighborhood in a different way and finding those resources in a way that perhaps other types of social structures did in previous eras. I think the library is really serving that purpose now. I had something today. Absolutely. I was actually asked to give a talk a couple years ago at the California Library Association about why are libraries still valid? And one of the things I came to realize as I was developing this is that I really, truly believe we're living in an age of expanding isolation. All these wonderful devices enable people to have all this stuff at their fingertips and it sort of takes away some of the reason why you have to be around other people and you watch the kids walking down the street these days and they're buried in their iPhones. I mean, they have that silly thing before the movies at the theaters where they show every kid they're looking at the little screen and not looking at the big screen, but it's true. I mean, you get bumped into four times a block nowadays and so my premise was that that's not enough that inherently in our being we are social creatures and that what's important about a library is it's a free place and an accessible place where everybody's welcome that can bring people together in different ways. And how that's impacted things architecturally is that the libraries have to be more flexible and more accommodating and there are some fantastic examples of this where you have large open spaces within libraries that don't have a signed purpose. As more things become digitized, the collection sizes, at least in some areas, are going down. We don't have all the reference books anymore. We don't need them because we can get that information through other means. But we have other things we need and so by having fewer shelves in some of the libraries, it opens up these flexible spaces where other types of activities can take place. And I went all through the mix before this today. And it's really exciting. It really is. And more and more communities are creating spaces where people come together and do these hands-on activities where teens can come and express their creativity in other ways. And I think that's important to keep in mind. I think more and more people say, why do we need libraries? We can get everything in five minutes on Amazon. We need them because of what they offer to people to bring people together. That's a really excellent point and that actually goes into one of the questions that I was just about to ask you. But maybe we can expand on that a little bit. You mentioned about the flexibility in library design in serving what community needs and trends currently are. But are there aspects of other building types that you think we can incorporate into library design? How will the library of the future adapt and learn from other building types? Well, there was a whole period where the whole thing was how libraries should learn from retail, how the bookstores sort of moved ahead of libraries in a lot of different areas, in having cafes that offered food, in having a little more variety and seating options, in having books face out so that you merchandise your materials. And that was great, but there's more to it. I think for a long time in the past 20 years, we've kind of been prisoners to the new technologies. Desktop computers took up so much assigned space. When you go to the Seattle main, there's an entire floor that looks like you're at Google offices because there's just desktop after desktop after desktop. And they're filled. That's going away. I mean, I remember when we did the Millbray Library, the new thing was walker duct, which were these ducts that we would put below the floor of the building to enable changes in cabling in the future so that we could bring hard wiring to every spot within the library. And it meant at every single intersection, whoops, sorry, you have this circular ring in the floor so they can access it to pull the wires. They haven't pulled a wire in years. We're Wi-Fi now. And even wireless charging is starting to happen. When wireless electricity happens, I don't think I want to walk in the building. You'll get microwaves zapped in the head. But there's a new freedom that's come, and it's huge. And when we did little branches like Park and Procedio, this new opportunity that people could check out an iPad or a laptop has revolutionized things again because all of a sudden you don't need to take up all that geography for your technology. The technology's mobile. It can move around with you. People can use the tables that are there in different ways. Use the seats that are there in different ways. And it really has opened us up. And I was so excited to see at the mix there's actually a little machine where the kids scan their card and an iPad pops out for them or a little laptop pops out for them. And then they just click it and return it back in when they're done. I think we're learning now more perhaps from the new thinking of office design, which has to do with this idea of something called benching, where not everybody has to have their own little office or even their own little defined workstation. You move around based on your tasks. And you have your little thing of drawers that goes with you and your chair and your laptop. And you move to different places. Well, I think that kind of thinking is going to be a problem. Yeah, but that can go too far. I mean, if it's kind of like we got a big box and you can do anything with it, well, why go to the library box instead of any other box? Well, it's a combo, though, John. I think it's that that's a piece that frees up some of the area. But you're still going to have the books. I mean, I really think I tried to read on an iPad. I hated it. So I'm a traditionalist. I love reading a book. I love being able to flip back and reference something. Harlan Coben's my favorite. Now, he's constantly got me flipping back to see what's going on. Books aren't going to go away. I was up here reading periodicals today. Those aren't going to go away, too. You want to sit with a paper or magazine in your lab. So you're going to have both. I just feel that this taking away the constraints and letting us be a little more flexible is a good thing that's going to help. So one thing I could add just about how architecture can impact this creation of flexible space. I think what we were talking about at the beginning, the variety of spaces in this building, the integration of daylighting, the connection to the natural world, architecture really can support and enhance the public experience with those things. And in our environment right now, we often, in the big, big boxes, you're completely isolated, as you were saying, throughout the day. So to have these moments of connection and powerful connections to nature and daylight and your fellow human being in spaces that are scale different and large scale spaces, more intimate spaces, places you might just feel comfortable to have a casual conversation with a stranger and learn something new. I think that's where the power of architecture can come in and really help. And those qualities are timeless. There's going to buck all trends and hopefully set good bones for the community that will transform and evolve. I think there's also something else that why is it important to have character in spaces? Because I've been in a lot of newer, not so much universities, but smaller, like community colleges, where there's a learning resource center and there's no library. And they're generally banal, uninteresting spaces. There are the kind of big box, whatever. So in the library, I haven't done as many libraries as you have markets. Nobody has. But I think it's really important to give a sort of character that a library is such a meaningful thing for people that it needs to also dignify that community at the same time as being accessible, welcoming, warm. And don't forget, we live, especially in California, or a lot of big cities, but here in a polyglot community, we really do have, I don't know, Marcia knows how many languages are in this building, but it's overwhelming how many. And we want people to be able to come here and feel that they're special because they're here, that they're comfortable and welcoming. That the staff in this library, one of the goals was to make it so that a librarian couldn't sit behind his or her desk and had to get up. And so there, but there are very few places where you have to, you can't see. I mean, security was a big issue, but the idea of sort of a place which is welcoming and warm and really accessible, but also has a sort of presence. So you can say, I'm part of a place that would build something special for me. I think that really is important. I think that's important because there are lots of tools and trends you can draw on for something like a library, but ultimately, a library at its best kind of represents a community's aspirations. And it needs, it doesn't mean it might look modern, it might look classical, it might look this or that, but ideally a library just walking in, you're going to sense this is a building that shows a city or a community or a neighborhood creating a space for everybody. You don't need money. You have access to all sorts of things. You have access with the help to people or the staff to people who will help you find things you couldn't find otherwise. And again, it was a lot easier a century ago. You put the names of authors up on the cornice and you carved them into the stone and it was kind of a very simple process because there was like an accepted general culture. Now it's much tricker. If you were to go to all the different branches of the city, you'd see many different stabs towards this, but ultimately, I think a library going ahead needs to continue to remember this is like no other building type that exists. This is like no other type of building, public building that there is and we can't totally deal that away in pursuit of, you know. I mean, you go out to the Richmond Branch Library, there's like a huge Russian library section. You go down to the Visitation Valley Library, there are huge Asian sections. You know, somehow the library structure itself has to be strong and have enough character that the cultures adapt themselves to that because the common thread in all that is a lot of the people coming in to use that are coming in to try and make a better life for themselves and their family. And that's, it's tricky to kind of, it's not like an architectural method, but you have to kind of create flexible space but also space that says there is a part of the public society that wants your life to be better. And you know, that tradition goes back to the Carnegie Libraries and before, you know, the aspirational access to knowledge that a library provides. But even beyond that, we talked a little bit about the role of public buildings in making a community and how public buildings build community. Libraries hold, of course, a very special place in that. I'll open it up to anybody who wants to kind of expand on that, but the special role that libraries have in providing that community space or as Marcia, as you mentioned, that third place. And that third place is becoming ever more important in our lives. So if anybody wants to follow up on that thread about how important that third place is and what libraries specifically can do to enhance that. I don't just put libraries in that category because maybe it's because it's what I've done, but the other piece are community centers and recreational facilities because those two afford people an opportunity to learn, to be social, to have fun, all those things with other people and to gather together. And I think some of the most exciting stuff that I've done, we did a project down in San Jose where it actually is a community center library combined. And I'm working on another one right now where there's just one front door. And they have different hours, but when the library's open it's a big sliding glass wall that's out of the way and there's this free flow between a library and a big banquet hall and a senior's area and a daycare and a gymnasium and sports area. And I think all of these things, I remember back when I was a kid in Detroit, we had a neighborhood ice rink and a neighborhood pool. It's where everybody goes. And I think they're just so important for that reason. They're not the home of government. They're not there to enforce the rules or to keep us safe. They're there for us to use. And I think something John said, they do become the symbols of pride for the communities they're in. And that's so important and that's such a big charge to us as architects to create these symbols and to make them unique and to respond to the different communities and the different sites they're in. It's why I wanted to do what I've done in my career. I mean, it's a great building type for us to be able to work on. Everybody wants to do these kind of projects. And I feel so lucky to have had a career where I've gotten to do that. I mean, I think we need, we really need special places. And one of the things that's always fascinated me is how in early days in California when someone built a reservoir on whatever slope boulevard is not slope boulevard, but what is that street that goes out to the, it goes out to the beach? Yeah, where the Merced Water Temple is. Or the Pugos Water Temple. Or all those, as you go up towards Sacramento, all those power buildings that Willis Polk designed and the Jesse Street substation is another example. The Golden Gate Bridge. Even, I mean, whether you like it or not, and I think there's some horrible things about the story, but the New Gate Bridge is something that's different. It's not just a banal causeway that crosses the bay. And I think that these buildings today are so important that they represent sort of a willingness to invest in the public realm. And the public realm is critical in a diverse polyglot world. And it always was, but for example, one of the things that I'm very impressed by is the new work that was done under Loris Park, which if anything, as a community center, that is one of them. And it's used by kids, by all people, lots of young people, but the work that was done by the city on that project is so extraordinarily beautiful and makes people feel a sense of pride. Or Christyfield, Marcia did a little, very utilitarian building there. But Christyfield, it's the bathrooms, but it was so inventive. And so little, tiny things can make a big difference. And the big ones really have to do that very well. Marcia, do you wanna talk some more about these elements of delight? Well, I think that connection between the building and the public realm and also the connections to the landscape on the project that we were fortunate enough to do in North Beach, that was really a great outcome where the park, Joe DiMaggio Playground and the library, that those two departments, the city departments, Rec and Park and the public library, came together and realized that that was a great opportunity to have this ripple effect of a branch library really positively impacting the whole neighborhood in a very big way. And I think that those little moments of delight when two places, two agencies, a community can come together and have the sum of the parts be so much more, I think is really a great outcome. So I think that connection to the outdoors, and I think making not only a space of public dignity and aspiration, but also a place of repose and safety and calm is really important too. And that's what makes building these types of projects so interesting and also challenging that you're striking this really unique balance between civic gesture, public realm, the scale of a human being, those intimate spaces for quiet reflection, which we don't have enough places like that in our society right now. So I think that that's really one of those areas of delight, those bringing people together and connecting to the outdoor world too. You know, one of the things, I'm losing my train of thought a little bit, it's what happens when you cross the 60 barrier, but one of the things about North Beach that stunned me was the opposition to the project. I have to say, I went to countless meetings in support of the project, because as an ex-resident of that neighborhood, I saw everything that was being done as such a win-win. I mean, to be able to expand the playground at the same time as getting a new bigger library that was fully accessible and everything just seems so great. But one of the great challenges we face nowadays is that public opposition to these projects makes some of them daunting to do. And as everyone who was involved, I see everyone who was involved in the community libraries knows they didn't all go smoothly. And despite all these great positive aspirations, some of the projects, like North Beach and Lake Park Branch, you know, faced considerable opposition. And it took a real effort on behalf of the city, on behalf of the architectural team, on behalf of a lot of other people who were supporters, like the friends who really worked their butts off on this stuff, it took a lot to make these things happen. And I'm just so glad that everybody came together to make it happen. Because now when I go to North Beach and see what's happened in the playground, I mean, I had kids in that playground. That's a fantastic playground, but it's better now. And the library's better now. So it's worth the fight that it sometimes takes. And that was an uphill fight. An uphill fight. But you know, things like San Francisco is a really quite unusual place. For example, that was a ridiculous fight in my view. And the community was so behind it. And I had this friend who worked so hard to get that thing to happen and was so good and was so proven to be good in every way. But things like the De Young Museum. Which do you remember? Well, but it's not, but also like I live in Berkeley and Mark did a very good branch library in South Berkeley. Yeah, and two of the libraries were from a modernist era and kind of a weird library cult kind of decided to fight to save it. And you know, it was interesting because one of the branches which I didn't go to that much, it had looked good enough when I drove by or bicycled by and the pictures look great. They actually went into it. And this was the South branch. And it was interesting as I talked to the librarian there a little bit and the building was decayed. I mean, it's 1950s architecture kind of had this blissful belief that grouting would never wear out and that. And that Eves would never say. There were all these miracle materials and no real attention to kind of like caring for them and the materials between the miracle materials. And it was real interesting. And you know, that was one, I mean, we could argue San Francisco and Berkeley are different, but I suspect you go to a lot of communities, especially in California. And I mean, that's part of it is the very particular and particularized affection people have through libraries. Part of it is because they're civic buildings, they become his straw dogs, the right symbol. His straw dogs, the right symbol. They become a way to fight other city battles. And that's something I've seen. I grew up in Walnut Creek and Walnut Creek has a big new library and that was a long fight. And it was almost between, it kind of came down to different visions of the city and it played out exactly because of that sort of issue. But this is not always like that either. I mean, I designed a library in Cupertino where there was so much support for it and so much, it's one of the busiest libraries in California. And it's just people rallied behind it in such a positive way, which was, I also designed one of Newport Beach where it was the first public building the city had ever built and we wanted to use this special stone in the floor or something and there was an article in the Newport Beach paper about how this stone did not come, it was Welsh. It didn't come from America and we couldn't use something that wasn't an American product. So I mean, they're just these, people care about libraries, they care a different way and they are a metaphor as many times are straw dogs for other things, but they're also, people are so passionate about them, they don't always agree. And we just hope that in the end they will come together and that's the whole purpose of the library too. Not the whole purpose. So speaking about agencies, public, all kinds of people disagreeing with each other for myriads of reasons, most of which may not even be the library. There's, building specifically in San Francisco has unique challenges. I mean, one, it's extremely dense. There is a very strong community that has high demands on what the public does and how the libraries are built among other buildings. There's also historical districts which occur everywhere. In San Francisco, they're quite prevalent. We have one that we're sitting in right now, the Civic Center Historical District. What do you think about amending that historical district to, so it's hardly strictly Beaux Arts anymore? You mean Civic Center particularly? The Civic Center Historical District or other historical districts in general? When this library was built, there was a very strong sentiment towards creating another Beaux Arts building or pulling on that Beaux Arts framework. Today in San Francisco, we see much more of an embrace of modern or contemporary or futuristic architecture that is a little bit, it's changed significantly within the last, let's say 15, 20 years. How do you see this playing out? I wouldn't mess with the Civic Center District particularly. I think San Francisco has aired in extending kind of historic district notions to anything that has an advocate. But there are places that are historic. And I mean, the kind of the bonds of the Civic Center, it doesn't mean you had to do a building that looked like this. I think that James Freed or a different kind of lead design architect could have maybe pulled it off more successfully. But I, you know, you don't want to like, I don't think this would be better if it was a blue glass oblong. I mean like the OMA light, the big Seattle library that's glass that was by OMA rim cool houses firm. And I think that's a really powerful building in a lot of ways. I wouldn't want it where the Brooks Hall is, you know, or the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium. I mean, I don't think that that tends to necessarily be the problem. I mean, but I think it could definitely be loosened up elsewhere. It's just my thought. I have to say, one of the things I like about the, why I forget what they're called, but the historic building guidelines is that it says that when you're doing an addition, it shouldn't mimic the historic building, but should rather. Well, it's a little complicated. But I mean, the general concept that you should contrast with the secular interior status. Yeah. And to me, there's something exciting about that. When I go to a place like Siena, Italy, and see these incredible historic buildings that have amazingly modern interiors or modern additions to them, I find it very exciting. Go ahead. I mean, I want to, sorry. I want to just comment on that because I agree with you totally that, but the Europeans are much more sanguine about it than we are. And the secretary, I've done a lot of projects that are secretary of the interior status projects. And they're important because the, if you have, if you do a historic building within the secretary of the interior standards, the developer of the building or the agent, the developer has to be a taxable, has to be a developer of some sort, can sell 20% of the tax credits for the project and gets about 20% of the construction costs from the federal government. It's really a great program. And I think that it's very clear that the secretary of the interior standards say, any new addition has to be clearly discernible and different from the old different. But then it says, at the same time, the next sentence is any new interventions in these buildings have to be compatible. So there's the problem because what's compatible? I think that these radical additions in Europe that you see to buildings that are historic are compatible, but it's all in the eye of the beholder. Like most things in life, there's a subjective component. And we've all done a lot of buildings under the secretary of interior guidelines. And it is really interesting because it does come down to someone's interpretation. And the language, number nine, number nine is that it doesn't, it talks about differentiation and compatibility, but there's also language in there that's really important about referencing proportion and form and massing. And it is a broader definition. And that has actually served us well in making those arguments. And I think there are really great examples around the Civic Center, the second ring, the PUC building and the state office building, the new piece behind. Yeah, that's a great. I think we have really great examples now in San Francisco that begin to walk a very interesting line with being compatible, respectful, but also something of our century and our time, particularly the PUC building, I think is really a good example as they have integrated sustainable design in such a great way. It made it very visible to the public. But it's couldn't have ever happened right on the Civic Center. I don't think those problems. No, I think it's that second ring. And the state building, which I agree with you totally, is set against that old building. It's a background. The second ring is, but I think one of the things that I would be critical of this building is that I think it had the opportunity to really make a comparative statement about the corner, which faces Market Street. And that was always part of Jim Fried's agenda. And our agenda was to say, this is the library that looks to the past. And this is the one that's about the contemporary city. And my personal view is that that end of the building could have done much more and much more elegantly addressed that corner and that whole wonderful idea that you have a library as a bridge. And it looks to the Civic Center on these two sides, but that has that corner. And it could have been something very different. And when I was working on the ferry building, John knows this. One of the ideas, I had the back of the building which faces the bay was always just a bunch of piers. It was never really, there was no real kind of elevation. It was, if you look at the old drawings of it, it was just very utilitarian, very gang playing some piers and the boats you got on the boat from the second level. And that was gone when we started working on it. It was completely bastardized and terrible looking. So done in the fifties, it was when Bart built the platform and the tunnel, that was destroyed. So, but I wanted it to be a very modern side. I wanted to say that you have this part that faces the Arcadero, that faces the city, that's a beautiful historic building, but the back of it could have been a glassy building that welcomed people to San Francisco by boat. And it was somehow a metaphor again about the idea of the past and the future. And they, it just was completely not possible at all. In fact, we almost got fired because of it. It was too radical, wasn't compatible. So there's a little bay window that's 660 feet long that has kind of slightly monitored. So that's it though. But it's really, I think that makes it harder and we're so precious about these buildings. And in Siena, they're 500 years old and they don't worry about it so much. I wanna just get back quick and then go on. You mentioned density and then moved beyond that. But I think a real challenge for library design in San Francisco and you see this now that the branch program's pretty much done. It's such a density that almost all the buildings are over programmed that you kind of grab the little piece on Ocean Avenue or you grab the little triangular lot in the North Inn and then all the things are put into it. And by things, I mean all the cultural wishes, all the social wishes, all the operational needs, all the worker needs. And a lot of these buildings just however they look on the outside, whatever moments of delight are on them inside, there's this stuffed feeling. And it's something I don't encounter in other, even like the Berkeley libraries where the city's not as dense and so there's a little bit of room for the, you know, the breathing. Exactly, exactly. One thing I appreciate about the density though that's to me a great challenge in doing libraries in more suburban sites is we didn't have to deal with parking here because when you're trying to interface with your neighborhood and to interface with nature like we did at the Belmont Library where there's these beautiful oak trees around the building, we still had to give up a third of the site to be a parking lot and it killed me. So it's such a nice relief here working in the city that they're so close together that you don't have to provide parking. And to me, that's one of the real gifts of the branch library set up in San Francisco is they are close together. So they serve individual neighborhoods. They become part of that neighborhood's identity and the people walk there or take the bus there or ride their bikes there. Yeah, but if the lot was 10 feet wider it would be. Yeah. Well, that's one of the things I loved about Presidio is that we did have breathing room around the building even though the big issue there was the dogs. You know, it was really nice to have that open space around the library. But also the branch library in San Francisco is fairly unique. I mean, for a city of this size, we have 29 branches. That's more branches per capita than most of the other cities. Well, it's great because you can walk from branch to branch. So they're defined by like this network of how far can a pedestrian walk? And isn't that what a planning is supposed to be about? And that is a very conscious choice that we've made in San Francisco. And to that end, they truly are these neighborhood libraries. It's not a regional branch. It's this neighborhood specifically. But as you mentioned, that comes with a whole host of challenges because each neighborhood wants all of the aspects that they see in the suburban regional branches. And that certainly has played out in all of these branch libraries that were designed. And with the main, at least there was the physical size to be able to accommodate that. And one of the things that we do find in the main is the light and the space. That's very airy. And that's, I think, still one of the things that strikes me about this building is that airiness, the light, and the sense of calm that you find in here. Well, I remember having a discussion with some people from the Friends of the Library Board because one of my buddies was Anna for years, about maybe not every neighborhood branch serves that function. And maybe a few are sort of special destination point libraries. And there was one in particular they wanted to look at to do something unique, but it didn't go, because of course the neighbors want to be able to access their regular materials and have a kid's area and all of that. So I think it is interesting about the Branch Library program that that is one of the great gifts, that bond that was passed, and that commitment that all the voters in San Francisco decided to make that stand that branch libraries were important. And I mean, I think we shouldn't forget the power of those bond measures and people committing to making those capital expenditures on behalf of the bigger civic realm and society in general. I think it's really important. We should think about that for our schools. Yeah, I was just saying, we shouldn't take that for granted because it is so hard now to pass bonds. I mean, I don't know if these bonds would have passed if it was up right now. So I think it is important thing to applaud in San Francisco for doing that. Great. Focusing a little bit more about libraries and the future. There's a public libraries of course or a distinct class of libraries or the ones that we're discussing today, but also they're the ones that people have the most interaction with. But there's also academic libraries and Marcia, I know that you've done some of those. Can you explain a little bit about the differences between both in terms of how the use of spaces and how the space is used by people? So the public libraries and public buildings in general in terms of making community. But specialized libraries. Are there things that we can learn from there or compare and contrast in terms of how we do public libraries? There are a fair number of similarities. I think the use, the demands on the building are perhaps more focused. You don't have a daycare carpet party followed up by senior computer classes within an hour. So I think the demands in use of the building are more focused and perhaps the design and architecture responds to that in a different way. But I think what we're hearing tonight is that those overarching desires for daylight and connection to views in nature and connection to people, students want that too, academic researchers want that. So there may be some specific specializations or needs. There's a whole, with special collections, I know, Kathy, you were involved in some of the special collections at Berkeley, I believe, that there's a whole technological requirement for those special collections, which is very interesting that we don't deal with at branch libraries. But I think those basic needs are still the same. You want to have that point of connection but also quiet and calm and thoughtfulness. I think they're much simpler to do, honestly. I really do. I started my company with a big, huge library at UC Davis. And there was only controversy whether there should be a card catalog or not. But I mean, and there was because the faculty wanted it. None of the students did it so much. And this was in 1985, so. But they don't have all those things. They don't, and they also don't have those demands of the kind of emotional demands on them. That they have to do many things. The best ones are research libraries, so they have a very different agenda. But they also still have to have those community things that Mark was talking about. So that there's a place, you want students to come and study in them. You want them to really, I mean, I just finished an Asian library at Stanford, which was in an old building that was the old graduate school of business where you also have a chance to celebrate a community by, again, by an academic library, by making it visible, by making it attractive. So people, in some ways it's just like this. It's a metaphor for the university. In fact, Thomas Carlisle said a university is a house of books. And that's a library, you know? And somehow there's that metaphor still carries along. I think though that one thing that has changed is that it is a place for people to come together and do interdisciplinary thinking and working the whole notion of project rooms and meeting rooms and flexible spaces for different kinds of gatherings. I think it's really fundamental to the university environment right now. I think it's fascinating to look at the new San Jose main library, which is a joint library with San Jose State University. So it has an entry on one side that's the public entry and it has an entry on the other side that opens to the main quad. And the thing I liked best there was walking into the children's room in the morning and seeing all the college students studying around the perimeter because they felt more cozy and comfy there than in any of the academic spaces of the library. But that library has issues though because people aren't using it very much. And unlike San Francisco, which has this power, I mean every, my library in the Valley so there's a little beautiful library there, your library, all these libraries are filled with people, kids, little kids learn about reading and books and grown-ups learn about a computer and you have lectures and classes. It's so fantastic. We have questions. Just can I do one other question and then we can go on? All right, so just to riff on what you were mentioning about. So the main library here, it's become kind of a fulcrum within Civic Center for the life of the residents and visitors here. In terms of this specific library and in general, what kind of design interventions could we do that could mediate the very real circumstances that we have downtown? You mean how most people? No, not necessarily, but- What do you mean? There's, so that the library itself being open to everybody and we mentioned that about it becoming that community meeting space that's available to everybody regardless of income or class or anything else. Is there anything that knowing what goes on today we would do differently at the main to help mediate that or to help enhance that? I don't know if there is. Well, I mean I think the building, there's this idea that I really love which is a man named Lars Lerop who was taught at Berkeley when I was first teaching there, wrote this book called Building the Unfinished. And basically he said in this book that architects never finish, we don't finish our buildings, people finish our buildings. So in a way, I think all of us speaking from these excellent, great architects next to me, we think about building a framework, a building that is evocative and provocative enough to be particular, but also that has that idea of openness and interpretation over time because if you look at, we know things are going to change. So I think you wanna make a container that suggests even the potentials for those things. One thing I will mention about this building though that is really interesting to me is that I completely was intrigued by the idea of having three entrances to this building which was important. Most libraries wanna have one entrance because that's the control points and this building does in a way have one entrance, but it seemed from an urban design point of view that we had of three. And Jim Fried came up with this idea of coming up from Larkin Street on a bridge and overlooking now this popular library and then coming in from Fulton Street because you had to do that and then coming in from Larkin, I mean from the Grove Street which is the corner of High and Grove which is where it barred is and so on. And it was ingenious because you come in and everybody comes around the atrium, goes down and comes through one room. Well, that was so confusing to people. No one had a clue. Where, and then the library for the blind is over there so it's really on the entry level when you come in from Larkin Street and Fulton Street but you have to go down to go up which is also an architectural no-no. But it's really, that's very confusing and it would be great if there were some way and we've talked about it, I've talked about some of your colleagues about how to, for example, make a connection to the children's library so you don't have to go down and up to this thing and it would be, it's very hard to do that. But I do think that is, I thought it was so cool and brilliant and simple but no, it's not how people use things and everybody says, how do you get into this building? But it's kind of like a lot of people say when you design a park, don't put any pads in it first. See where people walk and then put the pads there and it's what happens in all of our buildings. We might think they're gonna get used in one way but they get used in different ways and they adapt and eventually, I haven't had one turned down yet but I will and I'm sure I'll be traumatized because it's like losing a child. But we have to give up that sense of ownership because they're not our buildings. We play a role in them but you gotta give them their independence and things work out differently than you expect and you learn from that. But is it joy to come to a building like this after 20 years and say, this building is loved by people who take care of us. This building is loved by people who come to it and that's what we all hope, don't we? I mean, don't you want that? That's a better gift. Well, and I love that my 25-year-old came home the other day with, I don't know, 20 books and he said, God, I love the San Francisco Main Library. Yeah, and you know, that's what it's about. That's awesome. So we have a few questions from the audience. First, what happened to Charles Egaris? I am not Charles Egaris. I think he wanted to watch the basketball game. Charles is actually out sick today. Hopefully he may be back tomorrow and feeling better but we wish him well. Another question here. Do you think there will ever be a time where we don't need the physical building? You're asking the wrong crowd that question. If there is, we're all out of our careers. I would say no. Well, it's interesting because other parts of the country where there's been more of a financial strain where government's not held in respect, libraries have felt the brunt of budget cuts but certainly the culture in California and a lot of other regions is that you do need it because of all the reasons we were talking about of being the place to come together. And also, you know, this is an architecture but it helps to have people who can help you. You know, you can sit down and kind of jump around using Google and get all sorts of places but you go down some real intellectual dark alleys and here you can kind of get steered toward the more credible, nicely lit alleys. Very good point. As a follow-up to that, what could you imagine libraries lending 20 years from now? Magic glasses that have the books read across your eyes. I have no idea what's fun about it is, I don't know, but they're already lending so many more things. And the one I did in Berkeley has nothing new but it has a tool lending library. How cool is that? And I wish I lived there because I'm always needing a tool for this or that and there used to be in Oakland a baking pan lending library. So I've tried to set up at our local library a jigsaw puzzle library because you do it once and you're done with it. Well, everybody could donate them and then you can go check out the new puzzle. They didn't like the idea, but I thought it was great. Great, so here's an interesting one. 20 years on, please critique wayfinding in the main library and an abundance of unusable space. What can architecture do to alleviate security issues of a central city library or other social issues? For example, at one time, libraries included storage lockers. I didn't know that actually. I didn't know that either. It's tough. The premise of a main center city libraries, it serves all of society. Big cities in America, the center of the city is often where the most put upon the most troubled people end up. Most put upon comma and most troubled, not a single group. And I don't know how you can design something to kind of corral the people who make the experience less savory but still have it accessible. I mean, big city libraries I've been in, some the balance works well, some the balance is kind of depressing. And I don't know if, in one case, I think it has to do with the design but other cases, I don't know what else is going on. Well, you know, you think about society and the idea that people, I mean, I never even imagined when I was growing up that there would be homeless people in America ever. No, it never occurred to me. And except there were sort of the idea of hobos and people hopping on trains and then depression and stuff. Where else are they going to go? You know, they can sit on, they get into BART, people ride BART all day long or the subway or whatever it is in New York. And the library has to offer something for people. And you know, that's one of the big differences between an academic library and a public library is that academic libraries have an academic community that they don't have. And if they, you know, they very sweetly can say, well, we wanna make sure we have comfortable chairs so the students can sleep here if they, you know, stayed up all night and they have paper due and they need to have a nap. That's great in an academic library but it's certainly not possible in a, you know, this is not a negotiation center. What is it, what do you call it? Navigation center. Navigation center. But it really also has to fulfill that function. It also fills the function of literacy because there are a lot of people with amazingly number of people even in San Francisco don't know how to read. And so it is kind of all things to all people and if we don't have to accept it and make it as safe as possible under the circumstances, I think, I just don't. Thank you, Kathy. What about the wayfinding? I know that the Seattle Public Library has a very interesting wayfinding system with kind of the vertical spiral. Yeah, I mean, a tough thing here. I mean, the central atrium is gorgeous but it does mean every floor you come up on and the elevator, unless you use it all the time, there's the wait, do I go that way or that way? And then as you said, with the three entrances but there's the great elevation change so they don't all go into the common space. Those are, those are. Chicky. Yeah, yeah. I just think it, I mean, it just, you always as an architect make trade-offs and make choices and I think this was a choice to say having one entrance in this particular location, in this world, it's just not, wasn't just gonna not work well at all because, and I do believe that it, there's probably some way to deal with it better, but it's a city and it's trying to say you can come and be welcome from all these directions and it's a tricky, I mean, maybe the central space should have been on all on that one level but still then you would have a control problem. So the LA Public Library, which is an old building and a new building has two entrances and it drives them completely crazy. Two control points, not just two entrances, drives them nuts. No, you need one control point. You need one control point, right? Yeah, I think one of the other interesting things about this 20 year period is how the Civic Center has changed. And particularly in the last five, seven years, the energy on Market Street, that part of Market Street has totally changed. And that would be an interesting evolution of the corner, as you were saying. That might be an interesting design problem to give it a studio. I'll remember that next time. Yeah, next time. So then Kathy, this one follows up directly on that. A question on design, why is the front entrance built to step down instead of on level ground? It is an extra effort for the disabled to move around. True. True or false, true. Well, the grade of the site has a variant in it. So in order to have a central space, they have to come in at different levels to get there. Yeah, I mean, the other option would have been to come in off of Grove, whatever, whatever, to me, the main entrance is. Yeah, Haydn Grove would have been to come in and go up so that you'd have a central area on the elevated level. You come in from Civic Center, then you've created a huge basement. Yeah, but that, I mean, that's the thing. The program for this building was so far exceeded its site that, and we have a historic district, we have a height limit in the Civic Center. It's totally completely unchangeable, and I think brightly so. So, and there was this packing of the program and the idea of creating on this level something that was, and this is below the main entrance, something that was actually public space, this area, and then the main floor has a lot of things that it has to do. It has a popular library, it has all the control, has all the access to information. It's also the place where people come to know, figure out how to, where to go. So, you know, part of it was just trying to say, let's find a way to link these floors together. So, like in the Chicago Public Library, the Howard Washington Public Library, it's a, it's, there's no connection between the floors, and you go up the escalator, it's awful. I think it's really, it feels very, it's very, it's like being in an apartment store in some way. I was at a meeting where we were talking about that building today, and it's not heavily used. There's so many of the other main big city downtown libraries are used. I went there, and they have this amazing room on the upper floor. I mean, from the outside, I won't even comment, but there's this beautiful room on the top floor that's got a big cruciform skylight over it, and nothing happens in it. It's an event room, basically. So there were two little three seat cocktail tables, and one person in there, and I was just stunned. I thought, why isn't this the reading room? The way when you go to Phoenix, you know, the top floor is this amazing reading room, and it's grand and it's gorgeous, and they have the same issues that this library has. There was someone sleeping in the restroom when I went in there one day, but it's, that room takes such advantage of the opportunity for volume that you get on the top floor the whole day. And you know, it brings back the old New York and Boston libraries where there were these grand readings rooms that go back to what I think are some of the most gorgeous libraries. I've had the great privilege of experiencing like the Trinity Library in Cambridge, England, and the Library in Dublin, which are just these amazing halls with the seating in the middle and the books on the edges, and they're phenomenal spaces and inspiring. So I think in the interest of time, we'll just take one last question from the audience, and it's very open-ended. What's next for public libraries? Sharing of information, stories, imagination? I will say, I just, there's a great consultant I work with a lot named Joan Fry Williams, and have you guys worked with her? She's out of Sacramento, and she tags herself as a library futurist, and so we just did a presentation together out in Pleasanton, and some of the things she was talking about that were of great interest to me were breaking down the age barriers in the library, saying, why do we have a teen room when adults like Manga too, you know? And so why are the teen collections isolated, and you feel awkward going into there? Things should open up more. Yeah, there are gonna be spaces for different types of activity. So 20 years ago, it's why don't the teens have a room to get teens? I know, and it's so interesting because this was the thing that jumped out at me, and of course our program for Pleasanton has a great big teen room, and I love the new teen room here. I gotta tell you that to me is a really inspiring space, and it's full of kids today. So I don't necessarily agree with that, but that was one of her futurist things that she was talking about, and it's just a lot of things, but the main thing I got out of it is that libraries aren't going anywhere. We need them, we want them, we use them, we support them, and because of that, they should still be here. Great point. That sounds like a conclusion to me. Great conclusion, and then we can catch the opening. So to that point, I would love to thank our panelists this evening, Marcia Mado, Marcia Schatz, Kathy Simon, John King. Thank y'all. Thank you. Thank you.