After a devastating flood, a community needed to rebuild for the future. The new 95,000 square foot library was designed with transparency, multipurpose use and collaboration in mind.

In June 2008 a destructive flood swept through Cedar Rapids. The loss of the 25-year-old library was particularly devastating. Approximately 200,000 items in the collection were ruined as well as furniture, electronics and equipment were destroyed. A dedicated team of community volunteers and the Library Board of Trustees kicked off a campaign to re-envision how the library should function and to find a new home for this important public resource.

The new library was built on Greene Square, a large urban plaza near the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art, a network of public gathering spaces. The library’s interior offers patrons and building users unprecedented views to the urban and park settings beyond, connecting them to civic art, public gathering spaces, and programmed events.

The new 95,000 square foot library is designed to be a vibrant, multipurpose destination and a space for the community to mix and collaborate. The design of the new library was driven by the desire to embrace openness, transparency and foster public engagement with and within the space. With those principles in mind, the team looked for innovative ways to present vistas and views throughout the structure while visually connecting the streetscape with the functions occurring within the building.

The views in and out of the collection spaces are seen from nearly every vantage point around the new library. A 200-seat auditorium situated on the second and third levels looks outward toward Greene Square. The auditorium stage is set against a curtain wall of glass allowing for the changing seasons and cityscape to serve as a living backdrop.

It was an opportunity for us to ask: ‘What do we want in a library? What does the community really need? What couldn’t we do in our old space that we can do this time?’

— Amber Mussman, Cedar Rapids Public Library