The Central Library

Architect Moshe Safdie Date Opened May 1995 Our First Impression “[Moshe Safdie] says, you’ve got me all wrong. The library was never even supposed to be the Colosseum. He has said this to reporters with a straight face.” A Sober Second Thought “Much maligned by West Coast purists, the Colosseumesque Library is Safdie’s post-modern rebuttal to our city of glass—it’s warm, jokingly classical, and unabashedly outof-place.”— Michael Harris, design writer