Wherein I discuss whether
The Winter Park Library is the right building for the future,
and is thus causing friction with the now
Google earth snip, fall 2024. Library and event space at the center. Imagine a plaza around it, which 17-92 would traverse, and it extends all the way down to the lake.
The Winter Park Library suffers from a lot of criticism which mainly revolves around the fact that it doesn't fit in. Rebukes to futurism are perhaps sharper in Winter Park than other places, but hopefully in softer times something like this might happen.
The problem with the Winter Park Library isn't that it does not fit in; rather, the problem is that its present surroundings demean it. The low-grade commercial structures around it are cheap and slovenly. Morse was planned to be Park Avenue's glorious driveway, but this end of Morse remains a trash pit.
The best way to recognize the future is to clear out the commercial clutter around the Winter Park Library and give it some breathing room. One way to honor this building and give it some space is to create a kind of Place de la Concorde down to Killarny and a block or so around it. Somehow in there, give the area an underground parking that would help TJ's as well. The structure, viewed from longer angles, is singular and compelling, and it is a pity to be deprived of this by cheap commercial junk.
By clearing out capitalism's underbrush all the way down to the lake, the Library will become a kind of pivot point between a lakeside park and MLKJr Park, traversed by 1792. Bollards...so what? Property owners are compensated fairly and maybe have a stake in its future.
Another Google Earth snip, a view hovering above 17-92 heading northbound. It rises out of a kind of a plinth. Possibly a touch higher than the street. Perfect for a long view giving it some respect.
Taking down commercial space, you cry? well if it's so lucrative, why does it look the way it does? In any case the library needs more breathing room and this would be an opportunity for fair study of the urban spce to create such a thing. It's then that the structure's form will fall in line with its scale.
Agree? Disagree? Give us your reaction at rtreep@richardreep.org.
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