Mecanoo, Martinez Johnson to renovate MLK Library - The Washington Post: Ordinarily, one would cheer heartily for the decision that was announced Tuesday morning at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library: The architectural team of Mecanoo and Martinez Johnson has been chosen to renovate and perhaps enlarge the historic but troubled main branch of the city’s library. Mecanoo, a Dutch-based firm, will play the lead design role, and it will bring to a city of button-downed corporate and institutional architecture a stylish European aesthetic that could have a major impact on the city’s downtown core.
But the MLK library is no ordinary building, and this will be no ordinary project. Opened in 1972, the library was designed by Mies van der Rohe, in his signature austere and rectilinear style, a solemn dark box of steel and glass with one bold message: Transparency is essential to democracy, as books are essential to civilization.
