Upon its completion in 1963, the Beinecke Library received open scorn from Yale’s librarians. Three sculpted forms occupy the plantless garden: a pyramid representing the geometry of the earth and past, a disc representing the sun, and a cube resembling chance via the rolling of dice. The courtyard features a sculpture garden designed by sculptor Isami Noguchi, who exclusively used white marble in deference to the geometry of the library itself. Natural light enters the basement levels through a sunken court reminiscent of a cloister scriptorium. These subterranean levels also house the working areas of the library, including a reading room, offices, and classrooms. Underneath the library’s plaza are two additional floors containing the rest of the collection, which comprises 320,000 volumes and several million manuscripts. Bound in leather and, in some cases, even gilded, there are roughly 180,000 tomes within the glass shaft, set proudly on display even despite only being accessible to library staff. Ensconced safely within the marble shell is a glass tower six stories tall, filled with stacks of rare books. Two stairways to either side lead to the mezzanine level directly ahead, meanwhile, stands the hidden heart of the library. Visitors to the Beinecke Library enter by means of a revolving glass door at ground level. This structural system allows for the ground floor lobby to be almost entirely glazed, giving those in the plaza before the library a glimpse of the treasure trove hidden within the box. A system of prefabricated steel trusses is hidden within the granite, transferring the weight of the façade to the four enormous concrete piers that stand at each of its four corners. The marble panels are placed into a gridded frame of light gray Vermont granite. From the outside, the gray-veined white marble appears cold and impenetrable, but from within, the sunlight causes the stone to glow with a surprising level of warmth. Bunshaft’s compromise was to construct the façade of panes of marble which, at a thickness of only 1¼” (roughly 3 cm), allow for some light to diffuse into the interior without damaging the collection. Sufficient ambient lighting was required to enable the building to serve as a place for study and reading however, exposure to sunlight could damage the carefully-preserved texts of the collection. I believe one of the most important things in doing a building is writing a program, and that entails almost living with the people who are going to use the building, finding out how they hope to work in it, not listening to their solutions but listening to their needs.”Ī primary concern in the design of the library was the control of light. So you start making alterations, and the ultimate thing is a compromise. You then start to talk and work with the people who are going to use the building, and you know the design doesn’t work because of what you’ve learned in getting acquainted with the people. “Say you’re lucky and you win the competition. His reasoning, as he explained to Yale’s provost, convinced the university to award him the job: One of the architects he invited to participate was Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM), who refused. Paul Rudolph, the then Dean of the Yale School of Architecture, decided to hold a competition between four firms for the privilege to design the Beinecke Library.
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