NE-61
In a context of tall multifamily buildings with shops, the Chacao Municipality, supported by the community, acquired a quarter of a city block, where a paradigmatic square was developed. The square with two underground parking levels and with a narrow cultural building on its north edge, allows for different versions of a public library: the Eugenio Montejo (adults), the Children’s library and the Herrera Luque, a legacy of a neighbor with a literary career. It includes shady paved areas, a café, a reflecting pool with water jets (accessible to users) and an outdoor amphitheater area. Together they constitute a proposal for urban life that covers the neighborhood with attributes and reconstructs a piece of modern city, enhancing a modest context with new spatial values. On the west edge: a mural (Miguel Acosta) looks out to the plaza level from the underground parking and the outpatient building (Alberto Manrique), which, together with the clock, complete the edges attached to neighboring plots; while to the south and east it is bordered by streets. Two roofs speak of the plasticity of each material. The li-brary’s roof is of concrete, separate from the building’s body, with eaves that are thinner at the ends and lighten the visual weight. The light central roof, which like a canopy refers to marine structures, tensed at its four sup-port columns, is combined with tensile surfaces, tied like sails at a lower height.
