View through the library window

Windows

The Toronto Reference Library is the main branch of  ” the world’s busiest urban library system,” with more than 1.2 million library cardholders and 30 million website visits per year.  It’s on Yonge Street north of Bloor Street – uptown Toronto, on the edge of Yorkville, the glitziest (and most expensive) shopping neighbourhood in the city.  The exterior is unremarkable – passerby would never know that on the other side of the brick wall is an expansive atrium, a multitude of computer stations, areas for reading, studying, researching, 3D printing, drinking really good coffee and, of course, stacks and stacks of books.

On the second floor facing west are a row of rectangular windows, each with two vertical panes jutting out and joining in a ‘V’ shape. This photo is the view straight through one of these windows to the construction site opposite (itself with its own empty frames of windows from a bygone era); it also captures reflections created on the angled windows of streets beside the library and a view of a lounge below the window.