Day 47: The quest for mentor texts

Source:

Rybczynski, W. (1992, August). A good public building. The Atlantic Magazine, 84-87.

What is Sacred:

This article is about the opening of the Harold Washington Library Center in Chicago. The author places the architecture of the building within the long history of architecture in Chicago, but I think the best 2 paragraphs are right at the end.

Most striking of all, the library makes not the slightest effort to entertain the people who use it. Too many of our public places (shopping malls, airports) are either selling us something or attempting to keep us amused. The Chicago library takes itself, and its users, seriously, and through an architecture that is calm and measured, it resolutely communicates this sense of purpose: that books and reading and knowledge are important (87).

Connection to Current/Future Work:
I am adding this to my curation site as a mentor text for writing workshop. Use the last two paragraphs to talk about what descriptive writing looks like, and then how does the author use the descriptive writing to get to his conclusion about the building/library and its worth to the community?

Comments

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