Time magazine asked experts to identify buildings and monuments that best represent America today. The Austin Central Library made the list. The publication invited 25 architects, urban planners, scholars and other experts to nominate a building or monument that they believe “says something special about the nation at this moment.” Austin’s own Central Library building made the cut, alongside the Lincoln Memorial, the International Space Station and America's UNESCO World Heritage Sites, among others.
The Austin Central Library was selected by Eric Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at New York University. He described the iconic, six-story building at 710 W Cesar Chavez St. as a "palace for the people" and said he chose it for its role as a "civic hub, an antidote to social isolation, a play space, an ecological refuge, and, above all, a reminder that American communities are still capable of producing extraordinary public goods."
“[The Austin Central Library is] a model of the social infrastructure that Americans want and deserve, precisely what we need to rebuild an open society and democratic culture in this dark and dangerous moment,” Klinenberg wrote.
The building holds 350,000 books and is heralded for its open-concept layout, rooftop butterfly garden and kid-friendly spaces. It was designed in collaboration between architecture firms Lake Flato and Shepley Bulfinch.
Other buildings and monuments on the list included the Houston Astrodome, Hunter’s Point South (Long Island City, N.Y.), The Lincoln Memorial (Washington, D.C.), and Michigan Central Station (Detroit). Architectural forms or concepts also made the list, including the shotgun house, single-family subdivision, Williamsburg, Va., and the architecture of the immigrant neighborhood.
The recognition comes in the midst of the Austin Public Library’s centennial celebrations. The city’s first library facility opened on Feb. 16, 1926, in a rented upstairs room at 819 Congress Ave. Later that year, on Dec. 23, 1926, the city’s first permanent library building opened at West 9th and Guadalupe Streets. The 1,800-square-foot frame structure cost $4,190 to build — equivalent to nearly $80,000 today.