Library Buildings around the World

"Their (Ann Beha Architects') advice was thoughtful and concrete; the final design owes a great deal to their insights."
- H. Carton Rogers, Director of Libraries, University of Pennsylvania. (Beha)
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David Bishop Skillman Library, Easton, PA – USA 2005
Awards:
Library Building Award AIA/ALA 2007
Institute Honor Award for Interior Architecture 2006
The David Bishop Skillman Library, constructed in 1963, has been expanded and redesigned as a vibrant center of social and
intellectual life at Lafayette College. ABA designed a 35,000 SF addition, creating an innovative model for information services at the
core of the campus. The library integrates information technology and expands collections and library programs. As a newly
important center for campus life, the Library offers facilities for group studies, a café, gallery, a special events room, and informal
meeting spaces. (Beha)
Providence Public Libraries, Providence, RI – USA 2003
As the Architect for the Providence Public Library System, ABA completed a Master Plan for renovations and additions to the
central library, seven existing branch libraries and two new branches. This urban Library system, which won a 2001 award from the
Institute of Museum and Library Services, serves a wide variety of neighborhoods, through in-depth, general and specialized
collections and award winning public programs. The project included schematic designs and budgets for the renovation and
expansion of all seven existing buildings and a concept study for the central library, enabling the system to develop an overall capital
campaign. Completed projects include the expansion of the Rochambeau and South Providence Branches. The projects reconsider
the ways in which library services are delivered throughout the city, offering architectural expression to support the library’s
mission of providing access and invitation to new facilities for a diverse urban community. (Beha)
Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity, Boston, MA – USA 2002
80.000 sqf., € 25.000.000
Awards:
Boston Preservation Alliance Achievement Award 2002
A modern library within a neoclassical building respects the old by making clear what’s new, by Nancy Levinson
As conceived by the client, the program for the Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity mixes the practical and
idealistic, the private and public. Located within an existing building—the 11-story Neoclassical mid-rise once occupied by the
Christian Science Publishing Society—the 81,000-square-foot facility includes a technologically up-to-date research library and a
small conference center for both institutional and public use. In addition to these specialized spaces, the library features a sequence
of public galleries, all of which have a marked spiritual and pedagogical bent, and whose presence addresses the client’s ambitious
goal of making the library a forum for the public. These galleries include the Hall of Ideas, located in the double-height space that
was once the building’s entrance lobby and for which the MIT Media Lab has created "Word Physics," a computer-generated flow
of great quotations; the Quest Gallery, which documents Mary Baker Eddy’s life and work; the Monitor Gallery, an interactive
display that uses the resources of The Christian Science Monitor to explore world events, past and present; and the renovated
Mapparium, a three-story, spherical, stained-glass simulation of the globe, constructed in 1935 and long one of the city’s singular
attractions. Throughout, the architects have followed the sensible and sensitive course of refurbishing, wherever possible, existing
features and finishes, and of using a contemporary vocabulary for all that is added, thus articulating old and new. The result is a
lively blending of elements, including chestnut wall paneling, travertine and terrazzo floors, wrought-iron grillwork, and mosaic-tile
ceilings, all retained from the original building, and new features such as a lobby staircase with a stainless-steel stringer and glass
balustrade, sleek new birch furniture, and a glass curtain wall. The library occupies only four floors of the old building, with
research and archival spaces on the top two floors and public galleries on the lower levels. These public spaces posed a particular
challenge. If the library were truly to be a civic meeting place, it would need to establish a strong presence on its street, which
happens to be Massachusetts Avenue, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. But the old Publishing Society was not at all a presence
on the street. It was literally walled off, separated from the surrounding city by a 14-foot-high limestone wall that sheltered what had
been a private garden; the building was entered from the Christian Science Plaza (part of the church headquarters designed in the
early 1970s by I.M. Pei and Araldo Cossuta). The architects met this challenge with a skillful and bold gesture: move the entrance
from the plaza to the main avenue, tear down the high wall, and extend the lobby toward the street, enclosing the new entry space
with a gracefully curved, 16-foot-high glass wall, transparent by day, aglow by night. And from this generous architectural move
there followed an equally good landscape strategy, which was to create a garden between the lobby pavilion and the street. Designed
by Reed Hilderbrand Associates, the garden, like the architecture, elegantly intermingles old and new. By removing only portions of
the Neoclassical wall, the designers created a landscape in which new features, such as a stainless-steel waterwall, work in crisp
counterpoint to the imposing heft of the Baroque-style gate. See the February 2003 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of
this project.
Bowdoin College, Hawthorne Longfellow Library, Brunswick, MD – USA 2001
The Hawthorne-Longfellow Library is known for its special collections and breadth of services to the Bowdoin community. ABA's
design for the Library reinforces Bowdoin's commitment to providing a dynamic, technologically advanced, and welcoming library
environment for the college. The original library building, designed in 1964, presented many design and technical challenges. The
renovation provided new reading, study and reference rooms, an electronic classroom, a special collections/archives center, new
stack areas for reference materials, and new compact storage. (Beha)
Nantucket Atheneum, Nantucket, MA – USA 1997
Awards:
1997 Massachusetts Historical Commission Preservation Award
ABA renovated and expanded the Nantucket Atheneum, the town's historic library and cultural center. The scope included
modernization of library facilities, new building systems, and a 4,000 SF addition, which included a new Children's Wing.
Located in a new public park, the expansion complements the historic structure, and provides a lecture hall as well as areas for
study, story hour, browsing and computer technology. The project received a Preservation Award from the Massachusetts Historical
Commission. (Beha)
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