Essay

The case for small public buildings

A hall, a reading room, a shelter: the smallest budgets often reach the most people.

A wide stone staircase beside an escalator, rising toward the skylight

A public hall costs less than people think, and on a winter evening hundreds of people use it.

Small public buildings are where architecture meets the most people for the least money, and they are the projects we fight hardest to win.

They also teach us the most: every decision is visible, and every visitor is a critic.

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