A few years ago, the doughty trustees of the New York Public Library decided they needed an architectural upgrade. So they asked Norman Foster, the renowned British architect, to design a 21st-century interior for one of their iconic Manhattan buildings, one that would be practical, cutting-edge - and cost-saving.
Late last year these $300m-and-rising plans finally went on display - and sparked a bitter fight. Never mind that Foster has proposed removing some of the dark, 19th-century features to create a light and airy vista; what has really sparked controversy is that he wants to remove the old stacks of barely used books from the above-ground areas and put them in underground storage. That would let the library house popular collections from elsewhere in New York (and sell other buildings), as well as creating a cafe. “We want to use the above-ground areas for people, not book storage,” explains Anthony Marx, head of the NYPL. Or as Foster says: “There is an opportunity to create a major public space for New Yorkers.” The plans horrify some New York grandees. “Do we really want a Starbucks there, instead of books?” asks one big New York philanthropist. Indeed, Michael Kimmelman, the celebrated New York Times architecture critic, recently issued a furious attack on the “celebrity architect”, claiming that his plans were “a cramped, banal pastiche of tiers... [a] potential Alamo of engineering... a money pit”.
But in truth there is far more at stake than just architectural taste. For the key question that men such as Marx are grappling with is this: what on earth is the point of a public library at all these days? Why would anyone really need those physical book stacks - be that in an airy, Foster-designed Manhattan building, an underground warehouse, or anywhere else?