But the library basement also has another use as a studio for making ceramic water filters for the developing world.
VOA: special.2009.06.22
Previous years have seen Cirque du Soleil-style acrobats hanging from the rafters of the library's basement, a 12-piece orchestra playing songs popular during Prohibition and five old-school barbers in a pop-up grooming shop to freshen up any scraggly-bearded gentlemen, gratis, on the spot.
Machinery was stripped out, the factory demolished, the site developed to a design by Renzo Piano, a leading Italian architect, and the Academia Barilla opened in 2004, its basement housing the library.
Kern's main library was housed in the basement of the county courthouse in Bakersfield, in quarters so cramped that some of its materials were buried beneath old lighting fixtures, furniture, and other bric-a-brac.