1 Exceptional Libraries and Distinctive Architecture: Celebrating Reuse

This chapter traces some of the origins, developments and newer tendencies in reuse architecture from the perspective of the architect. Furthermore, it examines possible sustainability issues and qualities, beyond the obvious recycling aspect, inherently rooted in the practice of reuse architecture. The chapter also provides insight into some of the practical aspects of conversion and adaptive reuse from the planning stage at the drawing board to the reality of the building site, while maintaining a theoretical underpinning of this praxis, which the author considers to be a genre of its own. Accompanying the theoretical and practical overview, the chapter casts a critical eye over the relationship of formalised historic preservation methods and traditions in relation to the growth and popularity of reuse architecture and questions its future trajectory.