Library Buildings around the World

architects on the shortlist have not been told what is happening or when a decision will be taken. Oxford’s academics say
they have become used to such a lack of transparency under outgoing vice chancellor John Hood. Nicholas Bamforth, a
fellow at Queen’s College, says the entire Radcliffe Infirmary scheme has been “very much a fait accompli” rather than
something that has been openly debated. “It’s all the brainchild of the outgoing vice chancellor and those around him,” he
says. “So it has been rather steamrollered through. [Hood] likes big building developments but whether that’s what’s needed
remains to be seen.” David Adamson, head of estates at Cambridge University between 1998 and 2007, will not comment
directly on Oxford’s controversies. But he does make one point that wittingly or not carries implied criticism of the
approach taken to the Institute of Public Policy. “We said straight away we were never going to have an RIBA [type]
competition,” he says. “We would appoint architects on their ability to design, their track record and on their initial ideas.”
He believes that, all too often, design competitions force architects into sticking to flimsy early designs that they would much
rather revise. In contrast the Cambridge approach “means you don’t get a quick snatched scheme”, he says. Perhaps when
the new vice chancellor Andrew Hamilton — who, like Stern, is heading over from Yale where he has been provost — looks
at the books, he will call for the scheme to be scaled down, particularly with rumours that the Estates Department lost £30
million in the Icelandic banks. Even dons like Robin Briggs, at All Souls, who are optimistic about the designs, have doubts
about the cost of a scheme fashioned at the height of the economic boom. “There is already a financial crisis in the
humanities at Oxford with a structural deficit of between £6 and £8 million a year,” he says. “At the moment the university
is receiving very large amounts of money from the Oxford University Press but it can’t be guaranteed in the future. So just
how much of this can be done remains to be een.” William Whyte puts it more bluntly still: “Whether the Radcliffe
Infirmary site scheme is ever built is a good question.”
Read more: http://www.bdonline.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=426&storycode=3148820#ixzz0TAdBhZSj
University of San Andrés Library, Province of Buenos Aires – Argentina 1999
3.000 sqm
The campus of the University of San Andrés in Buenos Aires employs a distinct architectural vocabulary, with extensive
use of brick, exposed concrete, and broadeaved overhanging roofs. The main shortcoming of its master plan had long been
an open-ended circulation scheme lacking any apparent conclusion. The new building, besides meeting strictly functional
criteria related to its purpose as a library, was also meant to provide a circulation terminus and to serve as a visual focus
for the campus. The brick and steel of the trapezoidal building´s main volume echo the surrounding buildings, as do the
broad eaves of the roof, which enhance the reading environment within by allowing only diffuse light to enter the building.
Emerging from the metallic roof is the library´s main architectural gesture, an elevated cube of double-glazed translucent
glass that admids light during the day and emits a soft glow at night. The cube, besides allowing the introduction of natural
light into the heart of a building much larger than those surrounding it, als acts as a campus landmark: whether
reflecting or emitting light , it accentuates the profile of the library, defining it as the center of university life and as the
meeting place of the academic community. The library roof is formed by four non identical trapezoids defined by the line
segments joining the corners of the central cube with those of the main volume. A notch cut into the roof sheltering the
principal façade defines the building´s entrance. ( Viñoly)
VSBA Venturi, Scott Browns & Associates, Inc., Philadelphia, PA – USA
VSBA, LLC, is the successor firm to Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc., which was founded by Robert Venturi and Denise
Scott Brown. Our principals and staff build on our founders’ philosophy — an ethic rooted in social planning, contextual design,
and responsibility to our clients — to offer design that’s sensitive, pragmatic, and creative.
After over fifty years as two of the world’s preeminent architects, Robert Venturi has retired from practice while Denise Scott
Brown continues to publish and present her work.
Robert Venturi *June 25, 1925 Philadelphia, PA, USA
Denise Scott Brown *October 3, 1931 Nikana, Northern Rhodesia, wife and Partner
http://www.vsba.com
Libraries:
Dumbarton Oaks New Library Building, Washington, DC – USA 2005
Dumbarton Oaks recently celebrated the opening of its new library, designed by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. The
42,960 gsf, $18,000,000 facility was created to house the institution’s noted collections in a state-of-theart environment and provide
additional research space. The project was directed by Principal Daniel McCoubrey and managed by Senior Associate James
Wallace. The 5-story library is part of a complex of three McKim, Mead and White buildings amidst the Beatrix Farrand landscape
at the edge of the formal estate gardens. The library’s form is derives from the landscape: the red brick and limestone east façade
connects with the complex’s neo-Georgian structures while the west façade is terraced in relation to Farrand’s wooded “Dell”
landscape. The library mediates between the ordered court and the Romantic landscape. Our extensive site work helped to knit
project components within the existing landscape and to protect and restore original features of the gardens. Across from the
library, the original chauffeur’s house long served as home for Dumbarton Oaks’ directors. It will now contain dining and kitchen
facilities for fellows and staff. Renovation of the original “Cool House,” a greenhouse, provides primary reading space, library
services, and archives storage. Across the Dell, VSBA designed the Gardeners’ Court building to house a new central plant. We’re
also renovating the original Main House for gallery use and administrative purposes. (Venturi)
Schlesinger Library Renovation, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University,
Cambridge, MA – USA 2004
VSBA programmed and designed a renovation of the Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library for the History of Women in
America, one of a group of buildings at the head of historic Radcliffe Yard. Built in 1907 and originally home to the Radcliffe
College Library, the building became a research library in 1967. It’s now an important component of the Radcliffe Institute for
Advanced Study.
Over time, the building became more intensely and densely used to meet the needs of a modern special collections library. In the
process, most of the character, grace, and generosity of the original building interior was obliterated. Our challenge was to help the
Library recover some of its character while meeting the 21st century needs of an important collection and contemporary caretakers
and users. We:
•improved building systems to ensure security and long-term preservation of collections •facilitated library staffing and function by
consolidating service points and public access •improved building entry sequence and enable connectivity between public spaces in
Radcliffe Yard buildings
•reclaimed some of the building’s historic significance and ethos.
This project was the first increment of the Radcliffe Institute’s campus plan, completed by VSBA in 2002. Our renovation supports
the goals of the overall plan, with exhibition and meeting space on the first floor and a newly accessible entrance from Radcliffe
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