Defenders of the quirky Buckhead library are marshaling their forces just days before the Atlanta-Fulton Public Library System board is scheduled to discuss the library's future.

An online petition drive has garnered well over 1,000 signatures and a protest is planned for 11 a.m. Saturday.

John Spink/AJC (ENLARGE)

'The architects love this - I don't know any people who do,' said Buckhead Library visitor Tag Hunter. Developer Ben Carter wants to tear the library building down and replace it with a mixed-use tower that would include two floors for a library. He's offered $24 million for the land and library and government officials are interested.

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Ben Carter, developer of the $1.5 billion Streets of Buckhead project, offered Fulton County $24 million for the 2-acre library site. He wants to demolish the building and relocate the library to a new mixed-use building.

The current building, just 18 years old, has won several architectural awards and is internationally known. It's been referred to as a "slate dragonfly" because of its unusual skin and airiness.

Under Carter's proposal, the library would move to two floors of a highrise, sandwiched between a parking garage and condominiums. Patrons would ride an elevator to access it.

"The idea of something like that being destroyed seems monstrous to me," said Michael Riggall, a photographer who organized Saturday's demonstration outside the Buckhead Avenue branch.

Riggall's 85-year-old mother, Frances Sottnek, is a regular library patron. She called her son after reading a Feb. 11 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article about Carter's offer. Riggall grew up in Chastain Park, where his mother still lives, and visited the library as a child.

He contacted Fulton commissioners John Eaves and Robb Pitts and the library system director, John Szabo, then decided to organize the protest. He's made signs and bought 100 buttons that say "Save our Library!"

Jason Andersen, a young architect at Gensler, learned about the library proposal while lunching with co-workers. He read the article and saw that Commissioner Tom Lowe called the building "an abortion."

"I was mainly outraged by the language that was used," Andersen said. "I couldn't believe somebody would describe the building that way."

He started a petition drive on www.ipetitions.com to drum up support for saving the building. As of Friday afternoon, more than 1,070 people had signed; many included comments.

"Would you put the Margaret Mitchell House on a parking garage?" Kimberly Brannon wrote.

Eaves, chairman of the County Commission and a library system trustee, told other trustees at a meeting that Carter's offer might make sense.

"This is an opportunity for the county to receive some money — to profit," Eaves said. "But it's also an opportunity for the library to be brand new and relocated to the same immediate area."

Designed by Mack Scogin and Merrill Elam, the building sits on a crest and offers a view of downtown. It's also right in the middle of Carter's eight-block Streets of Buckhead redevelopment. Hotels, residences, restaurants, stores and office space are all part of his massive undertaking.

Buckhead Avenue is supposed to become a shopping mecca, so leaving the library there would be "a gap in the experience," Carter said, while incorporating it into a larger building fits in with central Buckhead's vertical growth.

There's no room in the project for a new standalone library building, he added.

Thursday night, a group of architects and architecture fans gathered at Georgia Tech to discuss why they think the current building must be saved.

One of the participants, architect David Hamilton, wrote to Carter and development partner Scott Higley on Feb. 13 and asked how razing the library jibes with the project's promise to spend millions on outdoor art. Carter last summer purchased a $1 million Frank Stella sculpture for his development.

"The library could serve as a centerpiece in your new public art collection," Hamilton wrote. "Instead of creating acrimony and a considerable backlash against the destruction of one of the most significant buildings in the city, why not help to preserve this work of art and architecture?" Hamilton said he has not yet received a response.

Another attendee was Elam, who with Scogin designed the building in the late 1980s.

She described the look as "very emblematic of open book, open thinking, open mindedness."

The library board meets Wednesday at 3 p.m. at the Central Library downtown.

"The library's board of trustees is aware of the architectural significance of the Buckhead branch," spokeswoman Kelly Robinson said Friday.