Margret Carney, university architect, announced Craig Dykers of the Norwegian architectural firm Snøhetta, which is planned to design the next university library, at Temple’s Architecture Alumni Lecture on Thursday night.
Dykers delivered the keynote address at the event, which was attended by many alumni of the architecture school, as well as current students at the Temple Performing Arts Center.
Dyker spoke of his firm’s experience in designing libraries, such as the Alexandria Library in Egypt, Ryerson University Library in Toronto, and the James B. Hunt Memorial Library at North Carolina State University.
The libraries, keeping in trend with many of Snøhetta’s modern designs, served to incorporate social activity to create more interactive meeting spaces, Dyker said.
Carney, who along with Provost Hai Lung Dai visited the construction site of the Hunt Library, said she was excited to begin working with Snøhetta on the design of the new library.
“We have high expectations that it will be a great process to design a building that is everything we envision for great architecture and an iconic building,” Carney said.
Carney said that there are many challenges in designing a modern library, and that one of the factors the university looked at when choosing the firm is their experience in designing state-of-the-art libraries around the world.
“We can’t point to another building and say ‘we want that’,” Carney said, describing the the process to design the building would be a “invention.”
The event was held in honor Brigitte L. Knowles, a former professor of architecture at Temple who received a dedication for her career in the Philadelphia architecture community prior to the keynote address.
