The Inglewood Branch Library is hard to describe, architecturally.
Is it meant to evoke a Swiss chalet? Polynesia by way of Walt Disney? Whatever the designers had in mind, they nailed it. Its whitewashed walls and russet roof meet in sharp angles. Its numerous windows doubtless offer soothing natural light in copious amounts, no matter the sun angle. The central fireplace, its smoke rising to a chimney from yet another vernacular architectural school â National Park Service rustic â surely crackles, offering warmth both metaphysical and actual physical.
The library, on Gallatin Pike and Winding Way, opened in 1969 on land donated by Newman Cheek, son of Joel Cheek of Cheekwood and Maxwell House Coffee fame, and fronts a neighborhood, officially known as Jackson Park, that bears Cheek