Library Buildings around the World

Yard. An area of the second floor was returned to double-height reading room space, and existing original building elements —
such as the ornamental stair and the Sarah Wyman Whitman Room — were refurbished and maintained in public view.
The renovated Schlesinger Library has been LEED Certified for its efficiency, environmental sensitivity, and sustainable approach
to interior environments. (VSBA)
Baker/Berry Library and Carson Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH – USA 2000 / 2002
10,000 sf new, 25,000 sf renovated, $ 7,525,000
Awards:
National Honor Award, AIA, 2002;
Illumination Design Award, The Illuminating Engineering Society of North America, 2000
Baker Library, the College’s beloved humanities and social sciences library, has been the center of academic life at Dartmouth
College. The Berry addition doubles the size of the existing facility and accommodates new public functions, technical services,
reading areas, a café, and the computing services and History departments. The original Baker Library building, essentially
unchanged since its construction in 1929, was renovated to accommodate new mechanical systems and comply with current fire and
life safety codes. Certain traditional reading rooms and gracious public spaces were carefully restored.
The expanded library occupies a pivotal site between the proposed academic row on one side and the College’s New England
commons — the College Green — on the other, thus becoming a focal point at the heart and crossroads of both old and new
campuses. The Berry addition extends the library north, anticipating and helping to generate orderly campus development in that
direction. Its linear form and imageful north facade terminate the axis of the new row and identify it much as the existing south
facade of Baker Library defines the College Green to the south. (VSBA)
Rauner Special Collection Library in Webster Hall, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH – USA 2000
VSBA’s challenge was to transform an underutilized building on an important site into an accessible, functional, and visually
evocative library for rare books and manuscripts with a secure and carefully controlled environment. The scope of the renovation
included a reading room, study and seminar rooms, offices, and technical support spaces.
Our design preserves the monumental interior hall as the reading room. As the original exterior walls of the building could not
effectively provide thermal and moisture protection for the controlled collections space without substantial modifications, an
aluminum and glass curtainwall enclosure was designed to create a transparent “building within a building.” This glazed “lantern”
of book stacks maintains temperature and humidity levels for the sensitive collection, protecting them in a vapor-tight environment
while making them more visually accessible.
The reading room accommodates 36 users and is surrounded by shelves of reference materials. Office and seminar rooms beneath
the balconies are acoustically isolated to allow groups the use of collections with contemporary audio and visual media. Above, the
mezzanine provides students with a comfortable and quiet study area, with views from the large windows to the surrounding
campus, lending an outward focus to a building that had formerly been oriented towards an interior stage. Additional book storage
is accommodated in an adjacent underground area with vegetative roof to blend seamlessly into the surrounding landscape. The
new Special Collections Library is a dialogue between the original neoclassical and the new. The machine-like curtainwall is
juxtaposed with gentle detailing on the walls, ceiling, and balcony front, while the millwork and curtainwall relate to the original
building’s variety of scales. (VSBA)
Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA – USA 1999
35,000 sf, $ 5,343,000
VSBA prepared a phased plan for extensive renovations to assist this venerable Philadelphia institution in achieving its goal: “To be
the most important place for studying four centuries of Pennsylvania and family history with the best special collections library in its
field.” Earlier additions and renovations resulted in inefficient and inappropriate use of spaces, labyrinthine circulation patterns,
unclear separation of back-of-house (staff) and front-of-house (public) spaces, inadequate environmental controls, and historically
compromised interior spaces.
We moved public functions — reader services, the reading room, browsing stacks, and microform study — from the second floor to
renovated and restored spaces on the ground floor. The original balconied assembly room, largely demolished when interfloored in
the 1970s, was restored as a reading room. Collection storage capacity has been significantly increased by fully utilizing available
space and adding compact shelving. Patrons can now use OPAC terminals for catalogue searches and computer data terminals are
available at every seat in the reading room.
Renovated public spaces and collection storage areas are served by a new chilled water plant and humidity control system designed
to maintain environmental conditions within strict ranges needed for collection conservation. UV shielded lighting and fire
suppression equipment were added to renovated areas, and the security system was upgraded throughout.
Future work includes improvements to collection storage, work areas, and other spaces made available by the relocation of public
functions to the ground floor, plus extension of the new environmental control systems to those spaces.
Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc. (VSBA)
Restauration of the Furness Building / Fisher Fine Arts Library, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA – USA 1991
Date Constructed: 1888-90, Architect(s): 1991, Frank Furness; restored, Venturi Scott Brown and Associates with Clio Group and
Marianna Thomas Architects
Participating AIA Philadelphia Members: VSBA, LLC, Marianna Thomas Architects
The library is one of the finest remaining examples of the work of Frank Heyling Furness (*November 12, 1839 Philadelphia, PA –
+June 27, 1912 Nether Providence Township, PA) . When completed it was the most innovative library building in the country. It
was one of the first to separate the reading room and book stacks. Books were kept in a separate wing, which was designed so that
the rear wall could be removed on jack screws and new bays added as additional space was needed. Within the book stacks,
translucent glass floors allowed light to penetrate from the sloping glass roof.
The most impressive interior spaces are the catalog room and the reading room. The catalog room is dominated by a monumental
fireplace. The reading room is surrounded by study alcoves and lit from windows above. Curved iron beams radiate from the center
of the ceiling to delicate terra-cotta leaves on top of the brick pilasters.
Like most of Furness' buildings, the exterior was highly controversial. It contains a rich use of brick and stone with terra-cotta
panels, short heavy columns and unusual details, such as the scalloped crenelations on the tower and gargoyles on the north end.
Robert Venturi was one of the first contemporary architects to recognize the importance of Furness's work. It was fitting, therefore,
that Venturi, Scott Brown, and Associates was chosen to restore the building.
(http://aiaphiladelphia.org/buildings/anne-and-jerome-fisher-fine-arts-building-university-pennsylvania)
Fisher and Bentheim Halls, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ – USA 1990
Architects: Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates, Inc., Location: Princeton, NJ, Client: Princeton University, Area: 54,000 gsf
Construction Cost: $16,800,000, Completion: 1990
230