Every day we share a single photo from our shot by one of our faithful and talented readers (that’s you!).
Today's photograph is courtesy of , titled , and shows the main entrance to the downtown branch of the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Public Library. Opened in 1995, it replaced the previous...wait a second? Front entrance to the library? I don't see the front entrance to the library in this photograph...
The official address of the Â鶹´«Ã½Ó³»Public Library's main branch is 350 West Georgia Street. So why would the main entrance of the library be accessed from Robson Street? The answer is that Moshe Safdie's early concept drawings of the approved design show the library's entrance at the corner of West Georgia and Hamilton, which happens to make a lot of sense - the other three corners of this intersection feature fairly important civic structures in the city: the Post Office, the CBC and the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.
Of course, were the library built that way, the plaza would have been in the perpetual shadow of the 21-story Federal Building that was also a part of the library. Thankfully someone noticed this prior to construction, and although the design was flipped with the plaza relocated to the sunnier south-eastern corner of the lot, the address remained as 350 West Georgia Street.
