Signature Series:
The Role of Libraries in the Public Realm
Greenwich Library’s Signature Series is pleased to present a fascinating conversation about the role of libraries within the public realm.
We have learned that Sarah Whiting, Dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Design, will be featured in an event at the Greenwich Library on May 16. Please see below for more information and to register.
Sarah Whiting, Dean and Josep Lluís Sert Professor of Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, will be joined by Eric Klinenberg, bestselling author, renowned sociologist, and Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science and Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University.
Klinenberg's book Palaces for the People argues that social infrastructure, “the physical places and organizations that shape the way people interact,” are the key to building a democracy that works for everyone. Our ability to live and work together depends on rebuilding our libraries, parks, churches and schools—all the places that strangers and familiars alike mingle and cross paths.
Whiting’s research and writing is broadly interdisciplinary, with the built environment at its core. An expert in architectural theory and urbanism, she has a particular interest in modern and contemporary architecture’s relationship with politics, economics, and society and how the built environment shapes the nature of public life. Whiting will walk us through three examples as markers of three moments/approaches: Tom Beeby’s Harold Washington Library in Chicago (1991), OMA’s Seattle Public Library (2004), and Mecanoo’s renovation of the NYPL Niarchos branch (2021).
Copies of Palaces for the People and 2020: One City, Seven People, and the Year Everything Changed will be available for sale and signing after the program. Books provided by Diane's Books.
This program will be recorded and posted on the Library's YouTube channel.