Today the District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) debuts a fly-through video of the upcoming changes to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library, designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and opened in 1972. For the past three years following the design competition, Dutch firm Mecanoo with local firm Martinez+Johnson Architecture have been working on plans for the renovation of the library, and tonight DCPL is holding what it is calling “a final design meeting.” The National Capital Planning Commission and the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts both approved the project in October, and DCPL’s executive director, Richard Reyes-Gavilan, tells ARCHITECT that the team is 85 percent through construction documents. The MLK Library building will close on March 4, save for a few special events in March. DCPL plans to reopen the building in 2020.
Fly through the future building here:
