Library architecture can override user needs when visions clash

Evidence

When architectural visions clash with the demands of library users, architecture often wins: the atrium of the main branch of the San Francisco Public Library, pictured in 2009, some fifteen years after hundreds of thousands of books were removed without consultation. — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 966

Categorization

• SEED: A possible essay on how monumental library architecture repeatedly sabotages the functions libraries exist to serve.
• XREF: Connects to broader themes in this book about form versus function in library design history. — connects to: Design choices optimizing for one task can cripple performance on the real task — Brian Christian, The Alignment Problem, 1221; Rebuilt libraries become new formations bearing memory rather than restorations — Jamal Awil, The Whispering Archive: The Complete…, 1402
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Andrew Pettegree, Arthur der Weduwen, The Library- A Fragile History, 966