News From the Mini Apple

As a former resident of Minneapolis (and Portland, OR and Richmond, IN and London, England and Kalamazoo, MI) I like to keep tabs on my former home. So I was shocked that I almost missed hearing about the official opening of the Minneapolis Central Public Library on May 20th. There are lots of lovely pictures of the library's opening on flikr at the moment, and they seem to make the library out to be one heckuvan odd duckling. You have pictures like this ...



(lovely, lovely) alongside pictures like this...



All the fun of a library with the atmosphere of an industrial hanger. I'm baffled. Some of the shots are entirely love to the eye, of course. Others show the overwhelming metal structure shown above. I'm also having a hard time finding pictures of the children's room which I KNOW must be cool. Flikr, for all its charms, is difficult to search. There are supposedly fireplaces on every floor, and lots of room, and plenty of computers for the kids, and all kinds of incredibly cool features that I would love to get a gander at. Does anyone have the hook-up?