Go Douglass-Truth
Today, on the corner of 22nd and Yesler, you will see, rising above the fence of a construction site, the initial growth of the gold skin that will soon cover Douglass-Truth Branch’s extension:
Two points to make: One, it’s incredible to imagine how this utopia of aurum with its futuristic band of light will look next to the old, Italianate building with its ornamented pilsters, foliated capitals, and Greek fretwork. Two, not one of the three new libraries (Ballard, Capitol Hill, Beacon Hill) can be counted as a design success. All are a mess, with the worst, Beacon Hill, looking like something built on an idea a designer conceived during a very long and very heavy bowel movement. The aureatic expansion of Douglass-Truth Branch, however, promises to be the second addition to Seattle’s library system from a mind that has an understanding of what constitutes and what doesn’t constitute the real condition of architecture.
Oh, Charles, don't you know you can't judge a book by its cover?
Maybe, though, this is the Central District gentrification's silver, err, copper lining.