CCTV Television Station and Headquarters, Beijing : OMA

The new CCTV headquarters, at a height of 230 meter and a floor area of about 400,000 square meters, combines administration with news, broadcasting, studios and program production - the entire process of TV making - in a sequence of interconnected activities. Although the building is 230 meter tall it is not a traditional tower, but a continuous loop of horizontal and vertical sections that establish an urban site rather than point to the sky.

Prada Store_ Tokyo

The Tokyo store is a strikingly unconventional 6-story glass crystal that is soft despite its sharp angles – as a result of its five-sided shape, the smooth curves throughout its interior, and its signature diamond-shaped glass panes, which vary between flat, concave and convex “bubbles”.

Jacques Herzog describes these glass panes as “an interactive optical device. Because some of the glass is curved, it seems to move as you walk around it. That creates awareness of both the merchandise and the city—there's an intense dialogue between actors. Also, the grid brings a human scale to the architecture, like display windows. It's almost old-fashioned.”



At Prada Aoyama the glass walls are not the usual transparent curtain-walling (as at Renzo Piano’s Maison Hermes, across town in the Ginza district), but a transparent, structural shell. Within, the structural cores and tubes morph seamlessly into elevators, stairs, fitting rooms and display shelves, giving a sense of continuous shopping space, very much integrated into the architecture.

Frederic Schwartz Architects wins library commission in Pennsylvania

Rear view of Pike County Library scheme facing the Sawmill Creek ravine (top); interior atrium (bottom).

The Vancouver Public Library

Funded by the City of Vancouver, the Vancouver Public Library is the third largest public library system in Canada, with over 395,000 cardholders and more than 8 million item borrowings annually. The central branch opened in downtown Vancouver on May 26, 1995 and cost 106.8 million CAD to build. It currently holds over 1.3 million items.


This newly constructed library has an indoor mall, all made with glass, This photo was shot looking up, you are seeing some trees that live on top of the library roof and the lighter colored structure on the upper right is the adjacent tower building which is being reflected into the glass on the left.

Institut du monde arabe in Paris

courtyard entry and facade overview







From the archives: inside the library in the Institut du monde arabe in Paris, France, designed by Jean Nouvel.

The curtain wall features a photosensitive system of blinds that were designed to automatically let in different amounts of light depending on the conditions. This was an example of "smart" architecture.

JUSSIEU - TWO LIBRARIES, FRANCE, PARIS, 1992

In the award winning scheme for two libraries at Jussieu, a technical university in Paris, OMA radically reconfigures the typical library layout. Rather than stacking one level on top of another, floor planes are manipulated to connect; thus forming a single trajectory - much like an interior boulevard that winds its way through the entire building.

Vasconcelos Library, the new and the biggest Library in LatinAmerica.

The Mexican government sponsored a design competition in 2003 for a new library in Mexico City that would serve as the literal and symbolic headquarters for the endeavor. The proposed design by Eric Owen Moss, which was the runner-up, incorporated features like prefabricated components and daylit “sun courts” that place it a cut above many of the entries. Aligned along a proposed new street extending the city’s grid, the building Moss envisioned would have had a hybrid structural system, in which the stacks for book storage were supported by a column grid and wrapped three reading rooms supported on wide-flange columns. A series of four sun courts carved from the building’s mass were shaped and oriented so that each one receives maximum sunlight during one season of the year; their walls act both in shear and in bearing. The grids of the glazed roofs over the reading areas act as diaphragms, carrying their weight to the surrounding frame. Soil excavated from the site would have been used to create an outdoor amphitheater for live performances and film screenings. Comprising a transit hub, galleries, exhibition space, and teaching facilities, the library would not have been just a place to read, but a community for readers.