Our incredible new library - a beautiful new space for learning

This weekend my wife and I took a walk past the our new City Library. The city of Calgary has been planning for our new library for quite a while. Unfortunately it's still mid construction, but the outer skin has just gone on, and it's gorgeous. I can't wait for this building to be finished in November - it'll be a great place to take the kid during the winter months when it's too cold to be outside.

In fact, kids from all over the city (including mine) were invited recently to scribble messages and their signature on the final beam put inside the structure. A sort of time capsule.

When you think of a library you think of dusty old halls filled with books. It still has books, but this place was built for the future.

It has a 350 seat performance hall for films and author readings, as well a massive 'great reading room'. There's a space designed for teens with studios for making music and videos (or me...for steemit), collaborative spaces for brainstorming, and an early learning centre for young kids to play. It also has over 30 free meeting spaces to book for meetings.

The entire building is about 240000 sqf, and in a feat of engineering, the local light rail transit also passes directly through the building.

In this age of internet and being disconnected (while being connected), I'm glad we're building a space like this - where people can get together and learn as a community. It's also amazingly beautiful - we don't have many buildings like this here, so it will be quite a landmark. I'm hoping the interior will be just as beautiful...more pics to come in November.

It's still a bit tough to get good pictures of the entire building as it's surrounded by a construction fence, but a webcam keeps up with the build - you can view it here: http://yycnewcentrallibrary.com/progress#progress-webcam if you're interested.