广州图书馆 Guangzhou Library

[Randy W]

 

 

Opened in 2013, we visited there in 2014 while applying for my new passport. The American Consulate is within a VERY short walking distance in Guangzhou's Zhujiang New City district. It holds approximately 3.5 million books in 100,000 sq. meters.

It is located in Guangzhou's largest city square:

花城广场 (Huāchéng Guǎngchǎng) Huangcheng Square, or Flower City Square

 

I took most of these pictures with the camera in panoramic mode to take in the full effect.

About the above picture: Huangcheng Square, or Flower City Square, with the Guangzhou Tower in the background (between the flags and the library). The overhang on the left is the library.

[Randy W]

 

 

[Randy W]

This is a digital book, projected onto the sculpture. Pages are turned with a motion similar to turning pages in a regular book.

 

 

 

[Randy W]

Checkout is fully automated

 

 

A map showing Huacheng Square, the Consulate, and the Library. The Metro line running through the Square is separate from the rest of Guangzhou's Metro. It is a two-car, underground, driverless system controlled automatically.

 

 

 

 

 

This post was inspired by a friend on Facebook, who had posted a link to this article about another large library with even MORE eye appeal.

China Opens World’s Coolest Library With 1.2 Million Books, And Its Interior Will Take Your Breath Away

Located in the Binhai Cultural District In Tianjin, the five-story library, which was designed by Dutch design firm MVRDV in collaboration with the Tianjin Urban Planning and Design Institute (TUPDI) and has since been dubbed “The Eye of Binhai”, covers 34,000 square metres and

can

hold up to 1.2 million books.

 

 

[amberjack1234]

Now that is what I call a library.