Who designed the Seattle Central Library?

Who designed the Seattle Central Library? Rem Koolhaas designed it with Joshua Prince-Ramus and the OMA/LMN team.

The Seattle Central Library is the flagship building of the Seattle Public Library system. Rem Koolhaas and Joshua Prince-Ramus were the principal architects, working through the Office for Metropolitan Architecture with Seattle-based LMN Architects. The collaboration combined OMA’s conceptual design with local architectural and technical expertise.

The 11-story glass-and-steel building opened on May 23, 2004, at 1000 Fourth Avenue in downtown Seattle. Its faceted exterior reflects the architects’ decision to organize library functions into stacked platforms rather than disguise the building as a conventional rectangular block.

Inside, the “Books Spiral” creates a continuous, gently sloping route through the nonfiction collection, while bright public spaces and dramatic views emphasize the library as a civic gathering place. A common mix-up is crediting the building solely to LMN or solely to Koolhaas: the stored answer is the accepted lead architect’s name, but the project was a collaborative OMA/LMN design. The building cost about $165.9 million.