The revitalization of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C., is the crowning achievement of the two-decades-long effort to overhaul the district’s 26 public library branches, with notable architects (David Adjaye, Phil Freelon, and Bing Thom) contributing new buildings in underserved neighborhoods. But the MLK Jr. building, originally designed by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and opened in 1972, serves as the system’s central library, a 426,000-square-foot Modernist jewel in the heart of downtown, just four blocks north of the National Mall and six blocks east of the White House. Refurbishing the building had been a long time coming: wayfinding was difficult; single-pane glazing made spaces either hot in the summer or cold in the winter; the lower-level auditorium felt cramped.
When the renovation—designed by Dutch firm Mecanoo and local partner OTJ Architects—was completed in September 2020, the Covid pandemic was in full swing and the fanfare for the project was less in the spirit of a grand reopening than simply an acknowledgment that the building was no longer closed. Visitation was limited to ground-level access for computer use and book checkouts; a planned café had yet to open; the auditorium echoed footfalls but was otherwise silent; and the rooftop garden, arguably the library’s biggest asset beyond its collection, was unoccupied and still growing in.
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