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New Library Shows Institution in a Relevant Light

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(Photos By Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post)
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Branden Terrell installs computers in the library, which has 40 public stations. The 44,000-square-foot building also boasts a Virginia Room, above right, on an open mezzanine overlooking the main reading room. There the library keeps its historical and genealogical materials.
Branden Terrell installs computers in the library, which has 40 public stations. The 44,000-square-foot building also boasts a Virginia Room, above right, on an open mezzanine overlooking the main reading room. There the library keeps its historical and genealogical materials. (Tracy A Woodward - The Washington Post)
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Fairfax City's new regional library, which opens Saturday, includes a children's section, computers, meeting rooms, and thousands of books, movies, and historical and genealogical materials.
Fairfax City's new regional library, which opens Saturday, includes a children's section, computers, meeting rooms, and thousands of books, movies, and historical and genealogical materials. (Tracy A Woodward - The Washington Post)
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The new library's covered garage, with 199 parking spaces, is a far cry from the old building several blocks away, where spaces were hard to come by both in the lot and on the surrounding streets.
The new library's covered garage, with 199 parking spaces, is a far cry from the old building several blocks away, where spaces were hard to come by both in the lot and on the surrounding streets. (By C. Woodrow Irvin -- The Washington Post)
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The integration of architectural tradition with modernity is an apt metaphor for the library's 21st-century mission of providing an array of services, from the literary classics to getting reference help via telephone text messages.

"We didn't want to do a historical piece," said project architect David W. Hallett of the Lukmire Partnership of Arlington. "We wanted to do something that was clearly a modern building that looked to the future as well as looking back to history."

The new library's location in the heart of Fairfax's Old Town is also a boon, officials say, part of a proposal pitched to the city by developer Trammell Crow to revitalize Old Town with a combination of retail, office and civic uses. The library sits at the corner of Old Lee Highway and North Street, an easy walk to shops, offices and restaurants.

Doors will open at 10 a.m. Saturday, and the day will include library tours, a magic show, a treasure hunt and even a parade of books from the old library to the new one several blocks away, weather permitting.

The point, Clay said, is to show how valuable and even necessary the public library remains.

"It's a beautiful building," he said. "At the same time, it's going to be very functional. We tried to design it with customers in mind and how they use libraries. I would like to come to a time when you cannot get through the day without contacting the public library in some way.

"We're not there yet, but that's our goal."


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