Last week, Architizer hosted the second edition of our Rendering to Reality lecture series at our headquarters in Manhattan. This time, we called up Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos to speak on his recently completed building for the New York Public Library — one of many projects his firm is tackling in New York City.
At 63, the Mexican architect is a design legend and arguably one of the most influential industry professionals to come out of his country since the mid-century modernists. Born in Mexico City, Norten studied architecture at the University Iberoamericana and Cornell University where he completed his masters. In 1986, he opened up his namesake firm, Taller Enrique Norten (TEN), in his hometown.
Enrique Norten chats with Architizer CEO Marc Kushner in Architizer’s New York Headquarters
Norten gained international recognition upon opening an additional office in New York in 2001. His firm has designed a wide variety of award-winning projects around the world, with current commissions for a Mexican Museum in San Fransisco, a new research campus for NASA and a mixed use tower for Miami’s Design District.
The firm also has numerous built projects and some under construction in New York including Hotel Americano, Mercedes House and the New Rochelle Library. Its 53rd Street Branch of the New York Public Library, set in one of the city’s most highly-trafficked neighborhoods, opened last June. Norten spoke to a packed crowd at Architizer’s HQ about the design decisions that he and his team made to create this vital urban gathering place.
“When first thinking about this project, we had two big questions,” he said. “How do we make the underground levels public space, and how can the image of the library itself change?”
Rendering became reality on 53rd St. in Midtown last summer.
The project sits on the site of the former Donnell Library Center, a 53-year-old public building that closed in 2008 to make way for a 46-story hotel. It was most well-known for housing the collection of the original Winnie the Pooh dolls in the children’s reading room.
Situated in a highly-coveted space between Rockefeller Center and the Museum of Modern Art, the previous low-rise construction was targeted for future development as a residential skyscraper in efforts to match the other towers rising up in Midtown.
Images via TEN Arquitectos
However, in 2013, the City of New York unveiled the new vision for the 53rd Street branch by Norten’s team: a 30,000-square-foot renovation project, set almost entirely below grade and featuring a transparent glass exterior that allows pedestrians to view activity within the structure.
Image via TEN Arquitectos
“In pre-modern times, libraries were designed as very closed, impenetrable buildings,” said Norten. “The first thing we decided to do was to have ‘zero façade’ and allow the library to be a completely open continuation of the street.”
TEN Arquitectos transformed the dark, subterranean setting into a light-filled, active public space with a dynamic internal streetscape. The defining feature of the interior construction is a massive bleacher staircase that extends from the main floor of the building downward.
Image via Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design
From the sidewalk, passersby can view movement surrounding the stepped auditorium where library-goers can read and attend lectures, performances or films. The multimedia library’s three floors are openly connected, allowing light from the building’s translucent envelope to filter into even the deepest corners of the plan.
“We created a very intense connection with the street,” Norten said. “We designed a corkscrew procession that would allow us to easily enter and come down through the library in a very natural way of activities.”
Image via Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design
The library includes dedicated spaces for adults and teens, plus a large Children’s Room on the lowest level. It also hosts 68 computers and 46 laptops. TEN Arquitectos aimed to integrate a blend of public and private spaces as well as technology and art areas that could adapt to the various ways in which information is shared today — in person, on a tablet or through a book.
Image via Horton Lees Brogden Lighting Design
Norten himself lives in the neighborhood and has eagerly watched how locals and tourists alike have been using his new building. He took great delight in describing how a long line of strollers forms on 53rd Street everyday before the library opens, with people clamoring to get inside.
“Public space is the space of democracy,” said Norten. “Architecture is about people. People weren’t happy when the Donnell Library was to be demolished, but now I receive notes from neighbors who love the building and the energy it brings into the community.”
Image via TEN Arquitectos
Norten also spoke about his nearly-completely mixed-used project on a triangular plot in downtown Brooklyn, the BAM South building. The thin, 32-story tower is set on a 15,000-square-foot public plaza with a series of terraced levels. In addition to the plaza, the bottom floors of the building will house performing arts organizations, retail space and a new branch of the Brooklyn Public Library. Twenty percent of the building’s residential portion will feature affordable housing units.
BAM South via TEN Arquitectos
When speaking about his firm’s lack of using a bold color palette — a common characteristic of Mexican architecture — in both the BAM South Building and the 53rd Street branch of the New York Public Library, Norten brought the focus of the conversation back to the relationship between designing for people and public space.
“We do use a lot of color,” he said. “We use the natural colors of the materials in our projects and allow the people to come in and fill them with life and color. We create civic experiences.”
Stay tuned for invites for the next lecture in our Rendering to Reality series with David Belt of Macro Sea on May 4th!