This past week, the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library and Mecklenburg County Asset and Facility Management selected an interdisciplinary team including architecture firms Snøhetta and Clark Nexsen, and New York–based business management consultant Brightspot Strategy, to design the Charlotte Mecklenburg’s new main library in Charlotte, N.C. The structure will be the third iteration of the library, whose current building, which was built in the 1950s, replaced the original structure that was completed in 1903.
“The architecture of libraries is … changing and Charlotte’s new library will lead the way in showing how a city and its core of knowledge can be open, welcoming, and intriguing for decades to come,” said Snøhetta’s founding partner Craig Dykers, AIA, in a press release. “Our team will start with the vision of creating the 21st century library—a ‘public commons’ where residents and visitors can gather to learn and share in a new knowledge nexus for the Charlotte community,” said Clark Nexsen principal Kevin Utsey, FAIA, in the same release. “This ties back to the original vision of Andrew Carnegie, who called libraries “universities of the people,” when he founded Charlotte’s first Main Library in 1901.”
This is not the first collaboration between the two firms and the consultancy—the team previously worked together to design the James B. Junt Jr. Library in Raleigh, N.C., which was completed in 2013.
