Biblioteca Vasconcelos
Biblioteca Vasconcelos is a public library in Mexico City, Mexico. Designed by architect Alberto Kalach and others, it opened in May 2006. Inside a huge shell of glass and steel about 250 meters long, blocks of bookshelves hang in many layers as if floating in midair. The floors are made of see-through material, so as you walk the aisles between the shelves, identical bookcases continue both above and below you, and you lose track of which floor you are on. A whale skeleton work by Gabriel Orozco hangs in the central atrium, further blurring the sense of scale. At times when few visitors are around, all that remains is a gray space where the same shelves repeat farther and farther back, feeling less like a library than the inside of an endless hangar.
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