I didn’t post a lot of photos in June, but I did post one from the summer solstice celebration at Burton Barr Library (the same day as my solar cookie baking experiment).
The reading room is designed with columns under sky lights. Once a year, at solar noon on the summer solstice, the reading room sky lights line up perfectly to illuminate the columns below them.
Unfortunately, this past weekend a monsoon storm caused a fire sprinkler to burst, flooding all five floors of this beautiful library. Most of its collections remain intact and clean-up crews sprang into action right away. The City of Phoenix is hoping it will be able to start reopening parts of the library soon.
Oh no! I’m glad the library collection is okay. How did they protect the books from the sprinklers?
Those columns are so cool.
They were able to save about 90% of the books. I believe the water was coming from one burst pipe above the 5th floor (not all the sprinklers) and flooding down the stairs, etc. So I think having a single source helped. Also, the fire crews that came were mindful of trying to protect the library’s books and other items. Beyond that, there’s probably some luck in the location of the burst pipe.
I love that the library is attuned to the solar system in this way. Bummer about the flood!
I’m curious what time solar noon is there…
Yeah, it’s really cool! I think solar noon happened around 12:35. I guess it depends on your exact location and maybe the time of year-? I googled it while I was waiting for things to get started, because I was confused about the schedule!
Oh that’s so cool! But the flooding… that breaks my heart as someone who adores books. I’m glad they were able to save all of them.
I was sad to hear it too!