OBA Oosterdok - Public Library

This guide to the OBA Oosterdok library in Amsterdam starts beneath the old Central Station post office, where PTT workers once sorted the city's letters and telegrams, and follows what replaced that sorting shed by 2007. It traces architect Jo Coenen, once the Netherlands' state architect, and the brief he was given to build a library worthy of a European capital. Listen for how he answered it with glass, concrete, and ten floors of daylight over the waterfront.