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Brooklyn Public Library is building a dynamic Visual & Performing Arts Library (VPA) that will celebrate creativity in Brooklyn. The first library in New York City devoted to both the visual and performing arts, the VPA will provide Brooklyn's growing arts community and the general public with free access to arts resources within a sharing and cultivating environment.

Hailed by The New York Times' Herbert Muschamp as "New York's first full-fledged masterwork for the information age," the VPA will focus on the link between new and emerging arts and technology, featuring traditional and digital collections. It will provide access to arts applications and technologies not widely available to the public and training on these unique resources. The collections will include the subjects of art, theater, dance, music, film, photography, architecture and more. A special archive will house the records of Brooklyn's arts communities and chronicle the borough's history of the visual and performing arts.

This visionary cultural destination will include reading rooms, collections, an auditorium, a café, galleries, artist studios, training rooms and environments to accommodate users working individually or in collaboration. The VPA will also provide exciting collections, programs and spaces designed especially for children and teens. A popular library will serve the more general needs of all users.

The glass, V-shaped VPA will be located in the Downtown Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) Cultural District, along Flatbush Avenue-easily accessible by subway, bus and the Long Island Rail Road.

The VPA design by Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos was selected in an international competition funded by the National Endowment for the Arts. TEN Arquitectos has been honored with the Mies van der Rohe Award for Latin American architecture, the Association of Architects New York Chapter Award, Bienal de Arquitectura Mexicana Silver Medal and two DuPont Benedictus Awards®.

Generous support for this project has been provided by the Mayor of the City of New York, the New York City Council and its Brooklyn Delegation, and the Governor of the State of New York.