The Southwest Neighborhood Library is a branch of the

District of Columbia Public Library The District of Columbia Public Library (DCPL) is the public library system for the District of Columbia, in the United States. The system includes 26 individual libraries including Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (the DCPL's central libra ...

in the

Southwest Waterfront The Southwest Waterfront is a mostly residential neighborhood in Southwest Washington, D.C. The Southwest quadrant is the smallest of Washington's four quadrants, and the Southwest Waterfront is one of only two residential neighborhoods in the qu ...

neighborhood of

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

It is located at 900 Wesley Place SW.

History

The library first opened in 1941 inside Thomas Jefferson Memorial Junior High School, a

Georgian Revival Georgian architecture is the name given in most English-speaking countries to the set of architectural styles current between 1714 and 1830. It is named after the first four British monarchs of the House of Hanover—George I, George II, Georg ...

-style building designed by architect Nathan C. Wyeth. A new library building opened in 1965 and closed in June 2019, with a new $18 million building to be constructed in its place.{{Cite web, last=Williams, first=Elliot C., last2=Turner, first2=Tyrone, date=2021-05-13, title=Take A Peek Inside The Newly Renovated Southwest Library, url=https://dcist.com/story/21/05/13/photos-new-southwest-library-sustainable-design-natural-light-dcpl/, url-status=live, access-date=2021-07-30, website=DCist, language=en During construction, interim library service was provided at 425 M Street SW. New-Southwest-Neighborhood-Library-Int

The new 20,000-square-foot building, which opened in May 2021, was designed by

Perkins and Will Perkins&Will is a global design practice founded in 1935. Since 1986, the group has been a subsidiary of Lebanon-based Dar Al-Handasah (Arabic: دار الهندسة). Phil Harrison has been the firm's CEO since 2006. History The firm was establ ...

and built by

Turner Construction Turner Construction is an American construction company with presence in 20 countries. It is a subsidiary of the German company Hochtief. It is the largest domestic contractor in the United States as of 2020, with a revenue of $14.41 billion in ...

. Built primarily out of mass timber and glass, it was produced in pieces in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

and shipped to Washington, where it was assembled. Though it is one floor shorter than the old building, the new library was designed with a focus on community space. It includes a large meeting room, three conference rooms, and four study rooms, as well as an outdoor porch. New technology incorporated in the rebuilt library includes an innovation lab with 3-D printers, as well as solar panels that provide for half of the building's energy needs. The D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation also collaborated with the library to improve the playground adjacent to the building.

References

External links

Official website
Public libraries in Washington, D.C.