Todd, I didn’t mean to imply that yours was an “imaginary” trip; I just recall thinking that you’re specially interested in visiting the National Assembly in Bangladesh to complete this goal (I don’t think the surfing suggestion was much of an incentive. Heh). ;-)

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Classic case of judging buildings by their facades, I guess.

I’m wondering what happened when you visited the Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower, or the Statue of Liberty, did you stay outside?

The landscape is different along the four elevations of the library, one of them is the Snake Garden by the way, but what’s important about the site is the way Pereira has interacted with it, his building embraces it’s surroundings, it seeks to blend instead of tear the site (nature) apart. This tendency is quite apparent in California, take for example the drive from LA to Santa Barbara, there are spots where you can see huuuge mountains that have been physically split in half just to make a road. Also, think about the scale, it’s a very massive structure, yet when you look at it, it’s almost barely there, because it’s cleverly concealed by the landscape which is being reflected by the building.

Also take a look at Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater” and Diller + Escofidio’s “The Blur.”