Architects: LEVER Architecture; Noll & Tam Architects
Size and location: Adding 1,500 square feet on the existing historic site
Timeline: Closing for construction April 5, 2023 Scheduled to be complete winter 2024/2025
While North Portland Library is closed for construction, Multnomah County libraries will be providing services in our service languages in the areas most affected by lack of access. Find your nearest library location and other service updates.
Get involved
Community events will be updated as they are scheduled.
Gifts to The Library Foundation will support an interactive early learning space, a mobile creative learning lab, and a study space for teens at North Portland Library.
New features
North Portland Library will be renovated and expanded, adding 1,500 square feet of space to highlight the diversity and history of the community.
Based on input from community members, new features will include:
- A Black Cultural Center for connection and a celebration of Blackness.
- Outdoor space for community members to relax and connect.
- Updated technology and internet.
- New art that represents the community.
Get a sneak peek at what North Portland Library will look like with this fly-through.
Keep up to date with this livestream inside the construction site.
Centering the community
In partnership with the Regional Arts and Culture Council, North Portland Library will showcase new public art that reflects the community. This includes a series of wood-carved portraits by local artist Melanie Stevens, displayed around the east-side window of the Black Cultural Center. Melanie's work focuses on important Black stories and cultural reclamation, inspired by her background in printmaking and graphic novels. The portraits will honor four significant Afrofuturist writers: Octavia E. Butler, W.E.B. Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston and Sun Ra.
Artist Sadé DuBoise created an original painting that was digitized and embedded into glass, making a large replica that will be part of the new Black Cultural Center. The glass panels will be installed on the west side of the Center, so people can see the artwork both inside and outside. Sadé's art is influenced by her North Portland upbringing and community input, blending respect for ancestry with a vision for the future. She held two community sessions to gather ideas for the artwork, including Adinkra symbols, which belong to the people and traditions of Ghana and are icons of African symbolism and philosophy.
Additionally, the design team asked for feedback from Black Portlanders on different color and design choices before opening them up for a public vote. The community chose the interior colors, which are inspired by Afrofuturism and the Black imagination. The final design features royal blues with golden accents, celebrating Black excellence in the past, present, and future.
We also reached out to other groups in the neighborhood. We heard from the community through public meetings, surveys, workshops and more. The design team hosted paid focus groups with diverse groups, including:
- Spanish-speaking communities
- Immigrants and refugees
- Indigenous communities
- Disability community
Teens helped shape teen spaces through a paid program called Youth Opportunity Design Approach (YODA). In sessions led by the architects and youth librarians, teens who use Albina and North Portland libraries shared what will make them feel welcome. Read more about this program.
Learn about how community engagement has guided all the projects.