By the west side of Wenying Lake, construction is underway for Datong Library, a modern library with the style of Yungang Grottoes in Datong city, Shanxi province.

As one of the four major cultural buildings in Yudong residential area, the library covers an area of 51,606 square meters with a height of 26.6 meters, rising four stories above ground with one basement level. It was designed by Preston Scott Cohen, dean of the Architecture Department at Harvard University.

The building has borrowed the design of Yungang Grottoes, combining a steel frame with a color-glazed curtain wall to create numerous irregular triangles, creating a scene that looks like a huge diamond sparkling in the sunshine. The roofing is designed to be ladder-shaped, showing the beauty of multiple layers.

The library can hold 600,000 books on the layered shelves.

Apart from the underground floor, which will serve as an equipment house and dining hall, the four floors above ground house reading rooms, an exhibition hall, a lecture hall and books. Considering the unique advantage of having a library in elementary education, picture books and toys are available on the first floor.

The project is 70 percent complete.

Edited by Fu Bo and Chris Clark