Seattle Times

SEATTLE'S NEW downtown library is so striking, so revolutionary, so odd and so lovely that one struggles to find a metaphor to explain it.

"...a song of light that changes with each cloud, sun angle and surrounding shadow."

Ga-aack!

"...integrates detailed functionality with an ever-changing symphony of color, line and form."

Fluu-eh!

"A truly rational building will not look rational," Ramus [one of the building's architects] says. Seattle's library "is large but not monumental," he goes on. "The spaces are designed not to intimidate but to accommodate."

Ahh, the Jesse Jackson school of Architecture-speak. What kind of silly bat is it that architectural schools hit their students with?

Hey, libraries are about ideas, good and bad, so I can't fault them swinging for the fences on this one, even if it does look like a giant Lunar Module. But how 'bout some meaningful words and rationale to match the unconventional lines? Come on guys, "It was a dark and stormy night" is no way to sell an internationally-awaited library.