CONCRETE IS AWESOME

“With its iconic arches, Toyo Ito’s new library at Tama Art University has the aura of a Romanesque building. But caves, not compression structures, were the architect’s inspiration, so any similarities to European antecedents are merely superficial. And unlike the straightforward, repetitive systems used historically, Ito’s high-tech concrete curves—each one different—tiptoe gracefully in multiple directions throughout the building.A continuous sheet of concrete, the building’s cavernous ground floor flows down to the north, following the land’s natural slope. It reads as a unified, slanting space accessed through an arcaded gallery. A circulation conduit and multipurpose exhibition hall all in one, this informal gallery has plenty of room for students to congregate around one of its built-in tables or display their work, be it a painting or a performance piece. It also acts as the entry foyer leading into the library, whose ground level contains the circulation desk, an administrative area, a media bar, and magazine display tables topped with glass that parallel the angled floor. A set of stairs shaped like a floating curlicue of concrete ascends to the second floor, where the main reading area flows into open stacks on one side and a two-story block of closed stacks on the other. Unlike downstairs, the floor plane here had to be level for the book trolleys that transport the library’s 10,000 volumes. But overhead, the ceiling tilts up gently, filling the entire second floor with soft, north light.”