Edition: U.S. / Global
Archives

Library In Texas: A Shade Too Much?

By The New York Times
Published: November 26, 1995

The talk of San Antonio is visible from the expressways, from the air, from almost any downtown street. It is not the size that stands out but the radiant color scheme -- the vivid orange-red, the indigo and the dazzling sunflower yellow.

This object of both delight and derision is San Antonio's bold new $38 million central library, designed by the Mexican architect Ricardo Legorreta. The building has been praised by one architecture critic who called it "an instant international landmark" and belittled by another as "the loudest library in the country."

Since opening last May, the library, with its vibrant colors and simple forms, has drawn criticism from residents who say the audacious red dishonors the city's more adobe-colored traditions.

For example, a recent name-that-color contest sponsored by The San Antonio Express-News drew dyspeptic entries like "truly repulsive red," "don't-look-at-it-with-a-hangover red" and "bleeding heart liberal red." The winner, chosen by Mr. Legorreta, was "enchilada red."

That the city would hire a Mexican to design the library upset a few residents, those who seem to believe San Antonio, whose population is 55 percent Mexican-American, is in danger of again becoming a Mexican territory. "I'm not too thrilled with enchilada red buildings," said Helen Dutmar, a former member of the City Council. "It just overshadows everything. The Spanish culture is beautiful, but sometimes you can go overboard. These people came to San Antonio to escape the Mexican influence."

But many more residents were delighted that a distinguished Mexican architect had been chosen to design the library in a predominately Hispanic American city. Mr. Legorreta, who is based in Mexico City, was best known for designing the National Center of the Arts in Mexico City and the Camino Real Hotel in Cancun.

"The people wanted a Legorreta building, and they got a Legorreta building," said Carolyn Peterson, a restoration architect in San Antonio. "It's modernist architecture with a Mexican interpretation: strong, simple, plastic and with a bold use of color. Any building that is that uncompromisingly one style is going to cause that kind of reaction."

Working with two San Antonio architectural concerns, Mr. Legorreta created a geometric cubist structure of five stories with giant red "marbles" that appear to be rolling down one side of the ground, linear "slot windows" and a large terrace accented with palm trees and lava rocks.

Milton Babbit, the architect who supervised the design selection, said it was only after construction began that the city learned of Mr. Legorreta's decision to use a glittering neon red. "He sent this color out and everyone just blinked," Mr. Babbitt said. But, he added, "Nobody's about to muck around with Ricardo Legorreta."

When the building opened, the city played up the color with a "paint-the-town-red" celebration and a parade to the new library on Soledad Street near Romana Plaza, about a mile northwest of the Alamo. Mr. Legorreta was greeted with cheers of "Viva Legorreta!"

The reading public has responded enthusiastically. Circulation is up 95 percent over last June, and whereas the old library had 800 visitors a day, the new one has about 3,000.

The old library was widely believed to be inadequate for a city the size of San Antonio, whose population is about one million, and was stuffed to capacity with 400,000 volumes. The new library, largely financed by a 1989 bond issue, holds about 750,000 volumes, said Craig Zapatos, the central library administrator. It is also equipped for the digital age.

Mr. Zapatos concedes that it is a high-maintenance building. Within weeks of opening, in fact, the library announced that its "enchilada red" had already begun to fade. Contractors are now putting on a more durable coat of paint that is a slightly darker hue, and the city expects to have to recoat the building about every seven years.

Whatever the disagreement over the library's outside, many San Antonians say the building's real strength lies within. A large, dramatic central atrium divides and subdivides, a restaurant is in the works and the children's floor has all the furniture and shelves in miniature for easy access, with the bathrooms in the same design.

"It's wonderful for them to highlight children," said K. T. Cockerell, holding on to her 2-year-old daughter, Claire, who was busy pulling books off a low-lying shelf on a recent Saturday. "I like the way it has been laid out. It's very spacious, and so they've anticipated growth."

Charles Pock, a local engineer, was equally enthusiastic. "It's one of the nicest buildings I've ever been in," Mr. Pock said. "Today it's really hard to do a good building. You have political restraints and financial restraints. But for the city to select a guy like this is a political miracle. Usually you get a tin barn or something."

Photo: The bold colors of San Antonio's new library, designed by theMexican architect Ricardo Legorreta, have been criticized by some residents who say the building dishonors the city's more muted adobe tradition. (Associated Press)
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/26/us/library-in-texas-a-shade-too-much.html?src=pm
www.nytimes.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2014-49
31659
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:GTZPSVHYLCU46AKJU3ITTBBPPLL3UMHP
<urn:uuid:85260cb8-9a8d-467d-a022-191b4d5e3958>
2014-11-26T01:47:18Z
170.149.168.130
sha1:AV3QQ5WMAGBCYNREGAGBXGJYJTA4HDCV
<urn:uuid:9531ae1f-7448-4da6-86fe-62909625db9a>
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/11/26/us/library-in-texas-a-shade-too-much.html?src=pm
response
<urn:uuid:72d5f6ee-d353-4580-90ee-3dc91676e1ba>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-235-23-156.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2014-49
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for November 2014
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf