« December 2007 | Main | March 2008 »

January 21, 2008

Never to Be Seen Again

Anyone driving by the construction site of the New Darien Library, or looking at our web camera view, will see that the building's structural steel armature is rising above the foundation walls and the completed first floor slab.

This is a picture I took on Friday, January 18th in the afternoon when construction had finished for the day, and I could walk on the slab of the first floor.

The view is looking up from the first floor through the space of the second floor towards North from approximately where our patrons will enter the building when it is opened in January 2009. From where I took the picture, when the building is open you would be standing on Main Street, as we call it -- the active central core of the building, with a concierge desk, new books, self-check machines and cafe tables where you can sit and have some coffee while talking with your friends.

I was thinking when I took the pictures, that soon -- three or four months from now -- no one will be able to see the structural steel, when it is covered over. And that's really a metaphor for how something gets planned and built, isn't it? Some of the most important aspects of a successful outcome depend on basic elements that are there, but aren't obvious.

You just had to be there on a cold day in January to see these important parts of the new building -- a building designed to last for a hundred years -- before they get hidden away by the brick, slate, tile and carpeted floors, wall board and millwork. We'll admire the parts of the building we can see when it's finished, but we should respect the structure that we won't be able to see, but will depend on unconsciously.

Posted by Alan Kirk Gray at 09:39 AM | Comments (1)