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Loading...Abandoned Walmart Transformed Into Beautiful Public Library
And the winner is…. the McAllen Public Library!
Out of ugliness comes great beauty.
The International Interior Design Association recently selected the McAllen Public Library in McAllen, Texas, as the winner of their 2012 Library Interior Design Competition. What’s so special about that?
The city of McAllen got stuck with a former Walmart store after the retailer closed the store and abandoned it. (Nice going, Walmart.) But instead of tearing it down, the city made the smart decision to reuse the structure and create a new main library, which is the size of 2.5 football fields, making it the largest single-story library in the United States.
Meyer, Scherer & Rockcastle, Ltd. of Minneapolis were selected to handle the interior design which the city required to be functional, flexible and affordable to construct. The company began by stripping out much of the old ceiling and walls left in the space. All the perimeter walls and ceiling were given a fresh coat of white paint. The resulting cavernous space allowed plenty of room for an auditorium, computers lab, classrooms and meeting rooms, and adult and teen reading lounges — not to mention hundreds of thousands of books.
As grist explains:
The best part: Library registration jumped 23 percent after the new building opened. Sure, some of those people probably wandered in looking for a gun and 200 diapers, and just took a while to figure out what was going on. But a lot of them just wanted to make use of a beautiful new public space.
You can check out photos of this gorgeous building by clicking here. What a great example of creative reuse of space!
What do you think? Was this a good idea?
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Read more: architecture, mcallen texas, mcallen texas public library, public library, visionary architecture, walmart
Photo Credit: robertstinnett
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Great news but maybe a homelss shelter would have been better!? Thanks!
wow, great
very awesome!
that is really awesome!
As a public school librarian, this was quite an article. The largest single story library in the US. I'm more than impressed.
This is great. I live in a jurisdiction that is closing libraries and has severely shortened the hours and closed them on Sundays and each one is closed on one weekday. It must be wonderful to have space for all those books and technology! I practically lived in the library during summer months when we lived in DC. They have recently begun to renovate and/or build beautiful libraries, but I loved the old Carnegie downtown best!
glad something good came out of it.
Wow! What a great concept. Not only does McAllen have a new library, it is completely accessible without use of elevators (which adds to building costs). I love the "office chic" feel to the spaces and hope that this library will be of great use for many years to come.
Catherine: your post was interesting, but I think you should perhaps write a column and submit it to Care 2 so it can be posted as a news item, instead of it being buried in the comments of something unrelated. Good Luck!
Abandoned Walmart Transformed Into Beautiful Public Library
Each year, Hawaii's elementary and middle school children vote for their favorite fiction book and present the author with the prized Nene Award. This is an exciting time filled with reading and sharing, and voting for the best.
The award began in 1959 when third graders at the University Elementary Lab School decided to create a book award. The Nene Goose, Hawaii's State Bird, was chosen for the award's motif. That year, the children selected The Blue Mountain by Beth Lewis as the first winner of the fledgling Nene Award.
The guidelines for nominated titles were designed by the children themselves:
•What is the best book you have read? Would many children enjoy reading this book?
•Does the book have an interesting story (plot), good writing (style) to help in the enjoyment of the reading and memorable characters (people or animals)?
•Does the book have something important to say (theme)?
•Is the author living?
http://www.librarieshawaii.org/information/nene.htm
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