Thank you, Metropolis Magazine, for featuring LEVER’s transformations of Albina Library and North Portland Library as renewed civic anchors grounded in preservation, cultural investment, and community-led design. LEVER, together with Multnomah County Library and Noll & Tam Architects, restored and expanded both Carnegie-era buildings through a capital bond measure to support contemporary civic life.

For Albina Library, the rehabilitation of the 1912 Spanish Renaissance structure reopens long-sealed arches, restores windows, and upgrades seismic and acoustic systems while maintaining the building’s historic character. A brick-clad addition introduces a teen center, maker spaces, classrooms, a community room, and a garden courtyard. At its center, a double-height reading room constructed with mass timber and glulam sourced from Pacific Northwest forests provides a generous public volume enriched by locally commissioned artworks reflecting Black history and culture.

At North Portland Library, the transformation centers on the Black Cultural Center, a flexible civic space developed with community leaders to support exhibitions, performances, lectures, and everyday gathering. The restored historic structure is paired with a contemporary addition of dark offset brick and wood elements, creating visual continuity with the surrounding neighborhood while signaling a new chapter. Reading rooms and gathering spaces are organized around warm wood surfaces, exposed structure, and daylight, reinforcing the library’s role as an enduring framework for civic life.