College and Research Libraries ELLSWORTH MASON The Heinecke Siamese Twins: An Objective Review of Yale's New Rare Book Library Building.1 In several respects Yale's Beinecke library lacked the benefits of the best planning procedures. Although the site was esthetically a difficult one to fill, the building does so quite well. The exhibition portion of the building which rises above ground level, the reading room, and the sunken sculpture court succeed nicely in accomplishing their re- spective functions. All, however, is not ay clearly conceived in the mu~ larger library section below grade/Access)$ not good; some of the lighting is poor; the impression made by the fechnical services area is harsh. Some of these difficulties could have been eliminated if better communication existed between architects and librarians. ANYONE would be morally offended to read the review of a book by the au- thor himself, but we accept without question the account of a new library building by the librarian who planned it, . the very person totally unequipped to give it any objective review. For he has moved out of a rat's nest into spa- cious quarters, which would seem grand no matter what they were, he is under heavy pressure from his university to get this prime piece of public relations on the road, there often is a kindly donor of the building pleased as punch in the background, and the building itself is the librarian's baby. Consequently, the effervescent flow of bland reviews of buildings (just run through an architec- tural issue of L]), all of which say that they incorporate in the highest possible degree all the successful elements, de- scribed in cliches, of the totally good building. Dr. Mason is Director of Library Services, Hofstra University, Hempstead, Long Is- ~n~ . The simple fact is that only a few good academic library buildings have been built since the war, and many of these are defective in important aspects, such as lighting. This article aspires to inaugurate a series of objective reviews of the most important recent academic library buildings, which should be writ- ten by consultants completely uncon- nected with them. 2 The purpose of such 1 This review has involved an analysis of the pub- Hshed accounts of the building, prolonged study of final floor and furniture layout plans, interviews with Richard Kates of Jaros, Baum, and Bolles (the building's mechanical engineers), and Morris Zelkowitz (team captain on this job for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill). In addition I spent two days in New Haven for a careful study of the building's details, and ex- tensive conversation with Herman Liebert (librarian of the Heinecke library), John Ottemiller (Yale's associate university librarian), and Kenneth Nesheim (assistant librarian of the Heinecke library). I thank all these men for their patient answers to my probing. They may not be surprised to know that their in- formation did not always jibe, and that I have had to evaluate the evidence available. 2 The Heinecke rare book and manuscript library was chosen for its inherent significance as a model, and because the writer became conversant with the Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill style while planning the Colorado College library with their Chicago office. The main features of the Colorado College library are clearly related to those of the Heinecke library, although Walter Netsch of the Chicago office stoutly denies it. I 199 200 I College & Research Libraries • May, 1965 articles should be to delineate the char- acter of each building sensitively, pro ·and con, and conclude what we can learn to use and not to use from it. THE PLANNING l The Beinecke library was not planned under the best of circumstances. It had an open-ended budget, with no firm upper limit of expenditure stated to the architects. This is a situation tailored for Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, whose New York office is noted for expensive architecture, and it is exactly the same kind of financial situation that called forth the architectural extravagances of Yale's Sterling memorial library at the end of the '20s, while Rome burned. It · led directly to some of this building's flaws, and better results could have been achieved by setting a large but firm budget. \ In the second place, the librarian of the Beinecke library had not been ap- pointed when the planning began, and was not appointed for about six months thereafter. This placed Herman Liebert, the logical candidate and the man who knew the dynamics of the operation, in a tangential position, whereas he should have been in a more central position of strength and authority from the begin- ning. \ In the third place, there was no de- tailed program for the building. The .Beinecke library was a radical departure for Yale in that it fused, for the first time, its special collections, each of which has its own curator, with the rare book . room. Yet the components of this build- ing were not defined in detail and the dynamics of the operation it would house were not completely delineated in a written program before the project was handed to the architects. As a result the present dynamics of the Beinecke library have been, to a certain extent, determined by Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, which is not entirely to the good, as will be seen. Finally, the University should have used a library building consultant, and a lighting consultant in the planning. John Ottemiller was central in the university's negotiations with the architects, and there is no question that he was respon- sible for some fine things in the building. But in negotiating with an architectural firm that has an unshakeable reputation for dictating to its clients, a library build- ing consultant of broad experience would have helped considerably, and he cer- tainly would have insisted on a written program.3 The lighting shortcomings in this building, where they occur, are naive and predictable. Yale had on the faculty of its school of drama one of the greatest experts on lighting in the country, Stan- ley McCandless, but he was not con- sulted on the lighting plans of this build- ing, or any of the recent Yale buildings. 4 THE SITE The Beinecke library was built on the southwest corner of Hewitt Quadrangle, on the last piece of uncommitted ground at the center of the University. On the northwest corner of the quadrangle, with its back to Beinecke, is a small, heavy, windowless imitation Greek temple built of white marble blocks, now consider- ably weathered. On the far side of the 8 There is a tendency at Yale to think of written programs and library building consultants as in- flexible elements that hamper creative architect s and produce unsuccessful buildings , rather than indispens - ible g uides through a dark wood. My own experience indicates that library buildings fail most often be- cause architects have a tendency to conceive of ( as they talk of) buildings as spatial sculptures rather than spatial functions, and this often leads to build- ing from the outside in , despite pious protestations to the contrary. It's a rare architect who knows how a library works, and the best buildings have resulted from a strong interaction between the special talents of the librarian and the special talents of the architect. On this job the imbalance was much too heavily in favor of SOM. 4 The stack lighting in the library section of the new Yale art school, half a block from McCandless' office, designed by Paul Rudolph, is simply incredible. It is formed of incandescent spotlight bulbs screwed into exposed conduit runs mounted slightly above head height in the middle of the aisles. The resultant glare is eye-shattering, and the heat is immediately disturbing even on a cool day. The arrogant disdain of architects for the basic principles of good lighting would require a four-volume commentary. The Beinecke Siamese Twins I 201 building are large bronze doors. Both the marble and the bronze carried over to the Beinecke library. 5 Just east of this building is the Uni- versity Commons, an enormous rectan- gular structure that flanks the entire northside of the quadrangle with a porti- co behind a dozen huge Corinthian columns, whose acanthus leaves on their capitals are discreetly covered with chicken wire, to avert the pigeon scat (the wire is not visible from the south entrance of Beinecke) . On the northeast corner is Memorial Hall, a rotunda whose copper dome, heavily green with sulfation, looms high over the quadrangle. Running south at right angles from Memorial is Yale's largest auditorium, Woolsey Hall, a lime- stone building pierced on the face op- posite Beinecke with five huge Roman- esque windows. On the southeast corner of the quadrangle is Woodbridge Hall, th e administration building, a smaller, squat, two-story limestone building. Across the street south of the Beinecke library is Berkeley College, a residence hall in cottage Gothic style, of light brown fieldstone, whose five stories in- corporate feeble attempts at buttresses, parapets, and leaded windows, to con- form to academic respectability in the early '30s. Just across the street west of Beinecke is a facade of the law school, whose light brown fieldstone lower level is topped by a red brick inset wall pierced, between buttresses, with elab- orately ornate Gothic windows that cul- minate above in a series of knobbed shafts and two gingerbready Gothic towers at the ends of the building. And across the street, on the diagonal to the southwest, is Sterling memorial library, whose window-slotted, but- tressed stack rises thirteen stories to a series of medieval towers (the nearest topped by a weathercock), and whose 5 The decision to use marble came late in the build- in g 's development, after Gor don Bunshaft's global search for onyx slabs of the proper size failed. awesome Gothic mass could be ignored only with peril. Commons and Woolsey Hall, which dominate the quadrangle, are strong buildings, with a feeling of quiet dignity enhanced by the names of great World War I battles incised in the frieze, a fifteen-foot high cenotaph to that war's dead in front of the portico, and a forty- foot memorial flagpole of painted bronze. Into these grounds an interloper dared not enter lightly. The 200' x 350' quadrangle between the buildings was paved entirely with cobblestones, round- ly cursed in slippery weather by genera- tions of students, since this is one of the main walkways between dormitories and classrooms.6 For an architect who works in a mod- ern style, the site could not have been more incongruous, but the most obvious thing about the building at first glance is that it has coped with the site problem brilliantly, and Hewitt Quadrangle has never looked so good. The building had to be oriented north-south, and the size of its head (that portion visible above the quadrangle, which is less than half of the building) has been held to the right proportions to balance nicely the other buildings in the quadrangle, both in its height and its facade. The use of marble facings and the simplicity of its form provide enough suggestion of the classical style to make it consonant with the buildings on the quadrangle, while the sharply cut, grey granite frames around the marble, which rise to a pointed boss where the frames meet, provide strong jagged lines across the face of the building and at its corners that relate it to the surrounding Gothic. In addition, the .provision of a sunken court has added interest to the quad- 6 There is an excellent photograph of the building in its eclectic setting on page [122] of the April 1964, Yale University L i brary Gaz ette (XXXVIII , 4), w hich can be found in any substantial library or boug ht from the Beinecke library for seventy-five cents. The same photograph, less successfully repro- duced, appears on page 140 of the .June 1964. Archi t ectural R ecord ( CXXXV, 7), v L v 202 I College & Research Libraries • May, 1965 rangle, which has been raised to side- walk level and paved entirely to the edge of every building with the same warm grey granite used in the Beinecke library facing frames, with the result that the whole quadrangle is brought together in an unusual way. 7 And there is no question that the building sustains the memorial tone of the quadrangle. THE CoNCEPT As indicated, the architects were re- stricted by the existing quadrangle in how large a building they could mass at this location, and the Beinecke library runs to something like 112,000 square feet. 8 They also faced the problem of excluding sun from the building, to pro- tect fine books. This is difficult to do if any windows are used at all, but the mass of a building is exaggerated if it lacks windows. In addition, they had to provide delicate temperature and hu- midity controls for preservation of the books, which are extremely difficult to maintain in a building with exposed walls. Both the window and the control problems could best be solved by bury- ing the library, and this they did; the library proper is entirely under ground. They also planned a second building, connected to the library by stairways, which is not a library at all but a grand and elaborate exhibition case faced with marble, with a glass wall on the main level, inset under the head far enough so that the sun never gets in, and a fifty-foot ceiling. This is the building visible above ground. It does its job in 7 In a prime example of abstract expressionism in words, which we could do without in architectural criticism, Vincent Scully states, " All these sur- rounding buildings are effectively swept out of existence by the Beinecke rare book library . . ." (Saturday R eview, May 23, 1964, page 28). Exactly the opposite is true ; the quadrangle now feels close- knit. 8 This figure was suppliel by Mr. Zelkowitz, but in the Beinecke library most of the computations gen- erally applied to the comparison of buildings have no meaning. Square footage is one of them, because although the square footage of the head is small its fifty-foot ceiling makes the corresponding cubic foot- age enormous . a remarkably impressive way, as is shown by the usual photographs of the interior of the head. 9 Entering from the east through a revolving door, which is 1 required at times, you are confronted with a glass-enclosed vault 35' x 60' that rises six stories in the center of the build- ing on tier-built stacks until it touches and helps to support the roof. Facing out in a hollow square of stacks on all six levels, on all four sides of the vault is a major part of Yale's rare book collec~ tion, an admirable sight. The books are lighted on each level by small incandescent lights on the ceiling edge of the glass wall, shielded from the public so that the lighted books command the view. The surrounding area is lit by down-lights mounted in the ceiling some forty feet above the mezzanine level, and these are kept de- liberately low so that, in contrast with its gentle gloom, the vault is more spec- tacularly dramatic. Downstairs on the main floor, where some daylight comes in through the glass wall, are very long flat exhibition-cases flanking the vault on the north and south. The main floor is granite. The vault can be approached from a mezzanine level ten feet above the main floor, separated from it by a three-foot gap. At the head of the stairs leading up north and south are large upright book- cases, brilliantly lit, with a curved glass front, and from the north and south en- trances on the main floor, they give the illusion of presenting books out in the open-real rare books-which gave me a great feeling of warmth when I first entered the building last February. Against the east and west walls of the mezzanine are a row of nine specially designed bronze exhibition cases (which will be discussed later) containing on 1 long-term exhibition some of the greatest rarities in manuscript and print of the eastern and western world. Again, the 9 See the photograph on p. [145] of the April 1964, Yal e Univ ersity Library Gaz ette. The Beinecke Siamese Twins I 203 bright light of the cases divides the dark air (Dante's phrase, and Joyce's), and strikes through their glass backs to the marble facing panels framed in granite, which, at a distance of four feet, are quite magnificent. These panels are of white Montclair Danby marble with a soft drift of gray running through it in streaks on the diagonal, a beautiful stone cut with rare craftsmanship. The panels are hexagon- alized, the lines pulling out slightly to a point from what would otherwise be a square face, measuring eight feet eight inches from point to point, in both direc- tions. These are framed in warm grey granite crosses, which taper out from the boss to the end of the arms, raise to a high point at the boss, and are cut on a sharp angle from the center to the edge of the arm. 10 Measuring eight feet eight inches in both directions, they are so arranged that each panel is held in place by two arms of each of four crosses. Up close, this arrangement is most impressive. When the sun strikes the panels from the outside, the marble glows a warm brown yellow, and the grey streaks dark brown. This effect is most spectacular at a distance, from the main floor. On the mezzanine are two large bronze cases specially designed to ex- hibit permanently the Gutenberg Bible ·and an elephant folio Audubon. On the north and south ends of the mezzanine are carpeted lounge areas with chairs ·and divans, and an eight-foot diameter ·single-pedestal table of Italian burled ·olive, its dark beauty completely ' lost oin the dim light.11 The ceiling is coffered, 'With a dark spot in the center (which is actually its light) and a dark relief to These crosses are derived from those in the screen wall of the Banque Lambert, Brussels, designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill in precast concrete. 11 I brought back a flashlight to look at it. This wood is richly magnificent in both grain and color, and it is a pity that the two desks made of it, in other parts of the library where they can be seen, are covered with plate g lass to avoid scratches, which effectively destroys their beauty. ·around the edge through which the ·ventilation is supplied. But the ceiling ·and the seating areas are not very no- ticeable. The central glass vault holds the center of attention, with the exhibi- tion cases against the walls as satellites, and behind these cases the grandeur of the marble facings and granite frames. This entire building, as I have stated, is an exhibition case, magnificent in a style that would have pleased Lorenzo, brilliantly original, and most striking out- side and in. The architects have reason to be pleased with their creation. It is by no means clear, however, that the University entirely approves of it, be- cause by its very nature it sets major policy that is not completely in accord with the academic and library communi- ty and the general tone of the Yale campus. It is a showcase, a prime piece 1 of public relations, a bijou in a bowl, to be visited by the curious and the idle I whether or not they are interested in books or things of the mind. In short, ;;· a kind of bibliographical zoo, with the prime animals eternally on show, no matter how tired they may get, and no matter how their keepers may fret. Against this should be stated that the excellent and commodious long exhibi- tion cases on the main floor are designed for exhibitions to coordinate with the instruction of courses in the undergrad- uate schools, that there is some hope that a few of the throngs who come to peer will be touched, and that the impressive style of the entire building may well lead collectors to choo·se this library to house their treasures. While this building leaves many unhappy, the architects' concept of the exhibition head and the buried library is clearly defensible. THE LIBRARY While the exhibition head measures 88' x 131' at its outer walls, the library proper measures 188' x 160' and is com- prised of two high-ceilinged stories, flanked on the south side by a three-tier 204 I College & Research Libraries • May, 1965 stack. 12 It is therefore much more than twice as large as the building above, and its mass has been skillfully con- cealed by burying it. Unfortunately, it is connected to the upper building in a way that makes it impossible to control incoming traffic (and sightseers are not invited here). The stairs begin about eight feet inside of the north and south entrances and at just a slight angle to them, so they have a tendency to draw people down, to land through glass doors about half way be- tween a twenty-seven foot long circula- tion desk (generally manned by one attendant) and the reading room. It is possible· to come out of the stairway fifteen feet from the desk, take a quick turn to the left or right, and be shielded from view by the staircase to go med- dling down the corridor into the cur a- tors' offices, which are often open, emp- ty, and full of treasures. While I am sure that people inspecting · the Saarinen hocky rink also cause difficulties, this arrangement is especially distasteful to bibliophiles, who insist that rare book libraries are for scholars, and rare book librarians should not have to pop up and down as inspectors. It is impossible to keep the casual or the curious from com- ing down to this level, which surely could have been planned if the building had been programmed . This floor, which is carpeted in a pleasant textured apricot color,13 is di- vided into two areas by the lobby at the foot of the stairs. To the west are a card catalog room, the processing room (behind the circulation desk), and a utilitarian cluster composed of a coat- hanger-corridor, rest rooms, lounge, and kitchen. 12 A large L-shaped expansion area was built under t he quadrangle as a shell large enough to contain triple stack-tiers on the north and west sides of the Beinecke library proper, for the law school library, which is connected to this area by a tunnel, but it was not in the Beinecke budget and is not included in these measurements. I should mention that the Beinecke library is also connected to the Sterling memorial library by a tunnel. 13 All right, you describe that color. The card catalog room is pleasantly panelled in teak, with teak bookshelves on all walls holding the reference col- lection. The catalogs are teak, with eb- onized drawer faces and bronze drawer pulls and bases. The wall edges and the bookcase sections are set off by dark inset relief strips, a handmark of SOM. Th,e feeling is one of dignified, hand- some, lavish simplicity.14 The eight-and- a-half foot ceiling is mounted with down- lights, which at this height .are unplea- sant and offend the eye in certain loca- tions at the tables. They are hot, even with .air conditioning, and only supply thirty to fifty foot-candles of illumina- tion. This room connects, through a small corridor, with the technical processing room, which lies behind the circulation desk, and is a commodious but unpleas- ant room. There is a generous amount of shelving on the walls, room for a dozen standard desks, four large tables, a sink, wall-built bars, and the like, but the room's 1,650 square feet of floor space, completely internal, unrelieved in any way, is the only part of this floor left uncarpeted (except the small kitchen and the rest rooms). This parsimony in a palace not only deprives the room of a pleasant feeling of comfort, but the light tile floor also compounds the eye- blinding glare of the lighting, which is very intense but of very poor quality. The glare from the ceiling and floor reverberates from the white walls be- hind the stacks, which, for the most part, are not filled with books. Built into the corner of this room, im- mediately behind the circulation desk, is the assistant librarian's office, which involves the same difficulties of feeling, for similar reasons, as the processing room. But it is not so intense because the room is smaller, and the librarian who occupies it keeps the lighting at its lowest intensity and supplements it with 14 There is a photograph of this room on p. [147] of the April 1964 Yale Univ ersity Library Gaz ette. The Beinecke Siamese Twins I 205 a desk lamp (though the overhead lights can produce 120 foot-candles). On the east wall is a huge white enamel panel filled with impressive dials, which indi- cate undue changes in humidity and temperature in all zones · of the library, the opening of doors, and fire hazard, by Hashing red lights. A much more com- plex and sensitive panel board in the mechanical area downstairs, which re- cords the conditions in e~ery zone of the library, is the basis for action by the maintenance crew.1 5 The other half of this floor, to the east of the stairs in the lobby, is composed of the reading room and the curators' offices, which look out from a hollow square through glass walls into the sculpture court. The reading room is completely successful in feeling. Thirty- six by seventy-eight feet, its size is disguised by the glass walls that enclose it on both of the long sides. It is car- peted, and contains a dozen four-by-six reading tables, each equipped with ad- justable book stands over which are laid two flexible cloth tube weights (filled with lead shot), the most practical de- vice ever invented for keeping a book open. The tables are handsome in teak. The four surrounding chairs ( Thonet, designed by Marcel Breuer) covered in black naugahyde, with chrome frames, match them well.16 On the end walls are six 30" x 72" tables with slanted tops, with a single chair at each. At each end of the central seating group are low, marble-topped bookcases 26' long, which 1 5 Even in the mechanical room of the Beinecke rare book and manuscript library, the panel board should not spell Gutenberg with two "t"s, which it does. 16 A study of this building shows the limitations of two materials. Teak is at its best in small pieces. These tables, and the teak desks used in the offices, are quite handsome, but the mass in which it is used in the card catalog room makes it appear a little weak (although that room on the whole is pleasant). On the other hand, polished chrome goes well with such textures as plastic, but is aggressive and hard when used in the frames of the teak desks. None of the commonly used metals- polished chrome, brushed chrome, aluminum, or stainless steel- goes really well with a wide variety of excellent surface textures now available in furnishings, and it is often preferable to use enameled steel in a harmonious color. are quite handsome, if not of much use. The lighting in this room is as excel- lent as that in the processing room is bad, and a comparison of the two throws a great deal of evidence on what makes for good quality in lighting. Ex- cept for the edges of the room, which are mounted (I can't say lit) with down- lights, this room has a luminous ceiling, which is to say that it is almost com- pletely covered with light. Illumination is provided by a combination of fluores- cent and incandescent lights above a milk plastic sheet diffuser, and while milk plastic diffusers of considerable size are quite offensive to the eye, these are covered with an egg-crate louver com- posed of 6" squares 4" deep, made of teak, which is quite handsome and puts the plastic out of sight. The lighting in this room is about 120 foot-candles, but of very high quality, and habitues of the room informed me that it does not tire the eyes during an ali-day session. Through the inner glass wall is the sculp- \ ture court, and a more pleasant and use- ful reading room would be hard to find. 17 Its one defect is that the feeling } is achieved partly at the expense of the security of the materials used in the room. After proper identification at the cir- culation desk, the reader is instructed to put his coat and briefcase, everything except his immediate working materials, in the coatroom-corridor near the desk, and the book is then brought for him from the stacks by a page. He is then directed to use it in the reading room, whose entrance is straight across from the circulation desk, at a distance of twenty feet, and in the far corner of the room he can be seventy feet away from the circulation librarian. The use of pens 17 A photograph of this room is in the April 1964 Yale University Library Gaz ette, p. [146]. With the irony that invades human affairs, the students who use this library are so highly motivated that they would wade through seas of blood to reach its trea- sures , and do not need to be lured in. Given the Yale collections, the occupancy of this room would prob- ably be the s ame if it were furnished with bales of gunny sacks. I ··. 206 I College & Research Libraries • May, 1965 is prohibited, but this is a somewhat dif- ficult restriction to enforce at this dis- tance. If the reader is bent on mutila- tion and feels inhibited by the glass walls and the glass panels that look into the room from the librarian's office and the conference room on the south wall, he can go into the small typing or micro- film reading rooms that open off the north end of the reading room and slash in a corner completely protected by a solid wall. In addition to the typing room at the north end, there is a microfilm reading room, each containing five stations. A means has not yet been devised for hold- ing typing copy, particularly large and heavy books, in the proper location for copying and yet close enough to the typewriter so that it is easy to read copy. The special bars in this room are no more or less successful than most others. While one of these rooms calls for dark- ness and the other for very good light, the lighting is the same in both rooms- very poor. The ceilings contain down- lights, which seem to be a disease with architects, and the intensity at the typ- ing desks ranges from thirty to forty foot-candles of very poor quality light, in this case not due to glare but to lack of diffusion and too few fixtures. 18 The other three sides of the sculpture court contain two secretarial alcoves, which open directly (without a wall) into the corridor, the curators' offices, and three seminar rooms, one of which has been assigned to their Hinman col- 18 Down-lights are round, incandescent lights mount- ed flush or slightly recessed in the ceiling. They sometimes have a lens (these do) and sometimes an ornamental grill. Architects love them, because they think they are romantic, like little stars in the sky. To get this effect, they have to be distributed wide apart, and although they are not spotlights, they throw a cone of light that covers no greater an area than a spotlight. To get any good coverage in a room. the ceiling must be saturated with them, and even then, they do not diffuse light evenly. When architects are afflicted with downlightis, which is of- ten, they use them to paint with, not to illuminate, to twinkle or "punch holes through the air," as one put it to me. So we get twinkles and punches, but no good light, and they throw horrible face shadows. lating machine. All of these rooms are pleasant, handsomely furnished, and poorly lit with down-lights. 19 In two rooms, a column lands in an awkward location, and unfortunately one of these is the office of the librarian. The court which opens to the sky, is deep enough so that sun is not a problem, and the window walls are equipped with louver- curtains that pivot closed, and draw aside when not in use. Those who have worked in an office with a window wall know how very pleasant it feels. The corridor surrounding the offices is lit with down-lights, which make no par- ticular difference here. They paint the ceiling pleasantly with a row of light circles and give enough illumination for walking. At the extreme east of this floor is a wall 116' long covered with glass- enclosed teak bookshelves which are good looking, very convenient, and ex- tremely _useful to the curators.20 THE ScULPTURE CoURT V The court serves as a light well for those working on the library floor (ex- cept the processing staff), and contrib- utes to the pleasant feeling that prevails on this floor. 21 Isamu Noguchi designed the court, which is paved with white Imperial Danby marble edged with a granite curb. The paving is cut by a pleasing design of arcs and partial cir- cles which move out from three large, geometrically designed sculptured forms of the same marble-"a 'Sun' symbolizing 19 A photograph of a curator's office, shot through the window wall, appears on p. [148] of the April 1964 Yale University Library Gazette. 20 The teak shelves in these cases and in the card catalog room are hung on round metal pegs slipped into holes drilled into the siding. This ancient de- vice has been updated in the twentieth century by equipping the peg with screw threads, thereby in- creasing· its efficiency in gouging out the siding. Al- ready, six months after installation, these pegs when removed drop loose sawdust. After twenty years, especially at heavily loaded ·shelves, railroad spikes can be slipped into the holes. Since adjustable strip shelf hangers are now available with wooden covers that conceal the metal almost entirely, this is in- excusable. 21 Sterling memorial library has two such light wells, one of them in a lovely court, which are probably the ancestors of the sculpture court. r The Beinecke Siamese Twins I 201 cosmic energy, a 'Pyramid' symbolizing the geometry of the earth, and a 'Cube' symbolizing chance."22 The symbolism is by no means imbedded in these forms, but they nevertheless are pleasingly in- tellectual, simple, and geometrical, thus harmonizing nicely with the feeling of the head. The architects have said that they avoided landscaping to prevent the retention of water that might seep into the stacks directly below the court, but since the ceiling of these stacks had to be penetrated in three places to provide water run-off from the curb drains and to provide a separate column to support the twelve-ton weight of Noguchi's Sun, we wonder if the hazard is not as great. THE STACKS Viewed from the east in cross-section, . this underground building is composed of a south three-floor tier-built stack separated by an internal wall from a north two-floor unit comprising the li- brary floor and the stack directly be- low it, which has an 11' ceiling and is separated into three sections by cement brick walls and fireproof doors. This jux- taposition of two and three stories vio- lates the AlA-ALA award committee's remarks about the "pristine simplicity" of this building and makes for awkward movement from the circulation desk to the tier-built stacks. In a rare book li- brary that does not receive heavy use, this is no great drawback. Burying the stacks simplified most of the problems of protecting the books from hazards. It immediately eliminated danger from hurricanes and lightning, and made the problem of heat and hu- midity control much easier. 23 In addi- 22 Yale University Library Gazette, April 1964, p. 129. The old grads have wielded their heavy-handed irony on the Noguchi sculptures in the correspondence columns of the Yale Alumni Magazine. 23 It would have been necessary to provide heavy insulation on the outer walls if they had been above ground, to ·prevent dripping at 50 per cent humidity in a New England winter. The stacks, both here and in the glass vault, are kept at a constant 70° temperature and 50 per cent humidity. The mechan- ical engineers claim that they can hold the system tion, it simplified the construction prob- lem by placing all the weight of the books on the floor slab, instead of on weight-bearing floors. The fire control problem is no easier in this building than in an above-ground building, but it has been solved in arl in- teresting way, by providing a Cardox system for flooding each of five zones with carbon dioxide on call from · sen- sitive heat and smoke detection units placed throughout the stacks. When the units signal, a bell rings as warning to clear the stacks, and the system then prepares to discharge. As soon as some- one presses a release button, the zone is sent a charge of carbon dioxide, heavy enough to prevent combustion, from a great tank in the mechanical area, where it is stored under heavy pressure. The system contains enough carbon dioxide to provide two full charges (pre- sumably they would be in two different zones), and still have enough gas left for a couple of small charges. While the manufacturers designed the system to re- lease the charge automatically two min- utes after the bell rings, the Yale au- thorities have wisely bypassed the au- tomatic discharge, because they know that people in a hurry sometimes trip, and that the ice crystals formed in a C02 discharge would harm the books when they melt. The system therefore will be discharged only after a human agent has looked to see that the stacks are clear and the fire large enough to require it. The one hazard that has probably , been increased by placing the stacks L underground is the moisture problem, to within 2° of this temperature and 5 per cent of this humidity, but I have long since come to doubt the claims of ventilation engineers, because I have never seen any modern building that is uniformly comfortable in warm, cold, and intermediate weather. All areas of the stacks in the Beinecke library, in- cluding the glass vault, feel good as you pass through them, and if the engineers can hold to within s• of the temperature, and 10 per cent of the humidity the books will be more than well preserved. The elaborate dial recordings of conditions in each of the building's zones should make safeguarding the books an easy, if constant, task. 208/ College & Research Libraries · May, 1965 although there is also danger of wall or · roof leakage in a building · above ground. 24 This building has to worry about moisture coming through from the plaza and the sculpture court. It is im- possible to treat concrete in any way that will make it completely waterproof. The waterproofing depends on covering the concrete with waterproof mem- branes, and pouring a second layer over the membranes. About half of New York City lies under such construction, and a great deal of that half leaks a great deal of the time. The Beinecke library contains the ideal solution to this problem, by inter- posing . one floor that is not used for stacks between the surface through which the water might seep and the stacks. Presumably, it would always be possible _ to repair the leak before it ran through-a second floor. Most of the stacks 1 are protected in this way. But having the solution in hand, the architects re- jected it 'by sinking the sculpture court above the basement stacks, and penetrat- ing the stack ceiling, to run the court ' drains through it and to support the No- 'guchi Sun. While the best construction methods for waterproofing have been used, there is some risk involved. There is also risk involved in the fact that the top of the triple-tier stacks is directly below the plaza paving, and is constant- ly walked on. Presumably the dials re- cording changes in humidity would in- stantly alert the servicemen to any se- rious problem, but they would not record small leaks. Remington Rand provided the stacks, which are 7' 6" high in the tier-built area, and 8' 6" high, which can easily take eight shelves a range, in the base- ment stack area. They are on 4' 4" cen- ters, ·hanging 10" shelves above 24" bases, leaving an aisle of 28", which is adequate. John Ottemiller, whose long :K I am informed by architects that it is impossible to build a roof that will not leak sooner or later, e ven if not subjected to unusual strain. experimentation with shelving in the Sterling memorial library is responsible for these stack arrangements, had Rem- Rand determine that the · same gauge steel used in their standard three-foot shelves could be extended to 40" (which he stated is the outer limit) and still hold a shelf full of average-size books without bending, and these stacks use 40" shelves. 25 Unfortunately, the module size of the floor was changed on site, and some 30" shelves and some 28" shelves had to be used as well. Except for the processing room and reading room, the rest of this building is lit by incandescent lights, despite the heavy load they place on air condition- ing. In these stacks, which are entered rather infrequently, and where conse- quently the air-conditioning load would be comparatively light, the architects have used fluorescent lights. They pro- duce very bad glare, but this is unimpor- tant in a stack area where no browsing will take place. The fluorescent tubes have been fitted with plastic filter shields to minimize the deleterious effects of this light, but to safeguard the rare books completely, incandescent lights should have been used in the stack areas. 26 THE VENTILATION The ventilation system uses a rotating screen prefilter, electrostatic filters and activated charcoal filters (which remove noxious gases, including sulphur gases 25 Ottemiller stated that this change saved the Uni- versity about $85,000 in stack costs (which sounds like a large figure) . It is clear that we are now in a position to re-think every dimension of stacks- height, centers (we should really think about aisle width instead, which depends on the width of the bases), length of shelves, and depth of shelves for our libraries. If a library is to shelve three hundred t housand volumes or more, it probably will not in- crease the unit costs to depart from the standard height and length. 26 For informaton on this subject, see Robert L. Feller, "The Deteriorating Effect of Light on Museum Objects,'' Museum News. ':Vechnical Supplement no. 3, June 1964 (supplement to XLII, 10, June 1964 is- sue of_ Museum News ; Journal of the American As- sociation of Museums) , and Laurence S. Harrison, Report on the Deteriorating Effects of Modern L ight Sourc es (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.). The Reinecke Siamese Twins I 209 . and ozone) to protect the books from air pollution. Both the air intake and ex- haust are screened from view, embed- ded in the top of the wall south of the library, and the cooling tower for the air-conditioning system is skillfully lo- cated on top of the Commons building to the north, which is high enough to place it completely out of sight. The ventilation of the head is unusual. A large volume of air has to be moved to maintain the temperature and humid- ity in this area, which is kept slightly different from that of the book vaults to accommodate people, yet is quite hu- mid. The air comes down through a four- foot opening in the ceiling, 40' above the mezzanine floor, in great volume. Since it mixes with the room air before it reaches walking level, it must come in at a considerably different tempera- ture than that desired on the mezzanine. Until the very late stages of planning, it was not definite what the facing of the building would be, since the architects were searching for suitable onyx to quar- ry. The mechanical engineers therefore planned the system for the hardest pos- sible conditions, with the result that the air enters with such velocity that it sucks moisture from the air already in the room. To balance this, they have ar- ranged to introduce humidity when it is needed through the peripheral vents on the mezzanine, which were originally designed to blow warm air up along the ~acings to prevent dripping in the win- ter. This is not an ideal arrangement for achieving humidity balance, and it would not have been necessary if an open-ended budget had not allowed the architects to hunt for suitable onyx, which, if fqund, would have increased the cost of the building inestimably. As it is, the humidity in this area is kept below 50 per cent in the winter (in con- trast to the book storage areas) to avoid dripping, and only slight dripping has been observed on the upper facing pan- els, where it is not dangerous. THE Acousncs In the only area where it matters, the reading room in the library proper, the acoustics are quite ·good, quiet, without being dead, with a low ventilation sound in the background, and no lighting hum. Everything about this room is good. In the head, the architects are reported as having aimed to achieve "stonelike" acoustics, one would surmise to inspire awe, and it is difficult to see how they could have achieved otherwise.2 7 THE CONSTRUCTION Although the construction of the stack areas is extremely simple-poured con- crete slab and walls, painted, with vinyl flooring; and the construction of the reading floor is conventional, that of the exhibition head is enormously interest- ing. Each of its walls, which measure on the longest sides 51' high by 130' long is a Vierendeel truss, composed of steel crosses welded together into a rigid framework. 28 This frame supports its own weight, the weight of most of the roof, the weight of the H4" thick marble facing slabs, and of the granite sheaths which cover the crosses (on the outside with cut granite, and on the inside with precast concrete sheaths into which has been ground the same granite until it matches in color). This is an expensive way to construct a wall, but it was absolutely necessary to achieve the amount of free space required inside. The trusses are supported eight feet :n Progressive Architecture, XLII (December 1961), 156. It was surprising to discover in running through the many articles on this library that none of them even in the most eminent architectural magazines, ~ completely accurate, and numbers of them are highly inaccurate. It is evident that these magazines push "~ews" for bulk, just as the daily newspapers do, with no great regard for accuracy, and the architects cooperate by making releases for public relations pur- poses. The result is a great body of literature loaded with facts, that is undependable. ' 28 Because of the enormous stress on the frame, the . crosses were changed in the course of planning from !'reformed concrete to welded steel, and this building IS a great achievement in welding. A photograph of the truss before being covered and infilled is on p. [171] of the Yale University Library Gazette for April 1964. l 210 I College & Research Libraries • May, 1965 above the plaza at all four corners on oilite bronze bearing plates that rest on steel columns embedded in concrete piers that go straight down through the building to bedrock below the founda- tion. The whole has been described by the architects as a "big box sitting on four points,"29 the most interesting and elegant box you are likely to see. The quality of the building's construc- tion, by the George A. Fuller Company of New York, is remarkably high, due partly to the fact that one of the Beinec- ke brothers is a director of this com- pany. The building has undergone, of course, some mild settling, but the con- struction throughout shows painstaking care that is unusual in this hit-and-run construction period. The stonecutting on the building, by the Concord, Vermont plant of the John Swenson Granite Com- pany and the Procter and Rutland, Ver- mont plants of the Vermont Marble Com- pany, is a joy to behold, on a level of craftsmanship that is unbelievable. Along the central rib of the granite crosses, where the stone is cut to a sharp edge right down the middle of the arm, it goes true and precise and flawless . Eight feet above the plaza, the under- side of the head above the glass wall is faced with granite slabs, and the joint between them runs 131' long, as neat and level as if laid out with a transit. The paving slabs in the quadrangle are laid with the nne precision for which New England was once noted. The pointing at the joints of the building is precise and unrippled. The whole build- ing has been done with a pride of work- manship that has nearly gone from the world. THE ExHIBITION CAsEs 1 I have deferred discussion of the ex- hibition cases because this library has solved more of the problems involved in designing them than any I have seen, but there are still more problems to be 29 Architectural R ecord, CXXXI (April 1962), 130. solved, and cases are extremely impor- tant in a rare book library. The ideal exhibition case should keep out all dust, and should therefore be sealed. Yet it must have movement of air within it be- cause stagnant air invites mold. To be dustless this air must be prenltered, and forced into the case, preferably through the top to be vented out the sides or bottom. The cases must avoid being heated, yet to avoid reflections in the glass facings, they should be lit from the inside. This means that they must be cooled with great precision, ideally, by a separate machine. Since fluorescent lights are much cooler than incandes- cent, they would seem to be most :6t for this lighting, but they produce ultra- violet rays which make paper and vegetable dyes deteriorate rapidly, and must be properly :6ltered if used. The cases must be at the right height for easy viewing, and not so large that part of the exhibit is too far away from the viewer. They must be easy to load. They must provide a background that will contrast with a range of different colors and textures. They must be es- thetically pleasing in appearance. It is easy to see how many of these qualincations are violated by the stan- dard flat museum case, or its variants, and the common upright exhibition case. To the credit of the architects, they have designed all the exhibition cases in the Beinecke library, all of which are es- thetically pleasing, and, with one excep- tion, which is really a bookcase, place the material exhibited in the right posi- tion for- viewing. I have already referred to the pleasant \ feeling produced by the cases at the head of the stairs leading up to the mez- zanine. Though they give the illusion of open bookshelves from the entrance, , they are glass-enclosed bronze cases about eight feet high built in the form of two upright flat arcs, which touch where they back into each other. They have curved glass fronts, which slide \ The Reinecke Siamese Twins I 211 rather sti£Hy to open, and are fitted with shelves designed to display the backs of books. They are enclosed bookcases. These cases have the worst heat prob- lem, because they are brilliantly lit by round, incandescent lights set in a row in the ceiling of the bookcases just three or four inches from the tops of the high- est books. They are air conditioned, but the temperature in them runs about 80° in the top of the cases. There are two large-headed cases tai- lored (one a little snugly) to specific books-Yale's magnificent copies of the Gutenberg Bible and the elephant folio Audubon. The Gutenberg case has four 1 glass sides, framed in bronze, that mea- sure 4' x 4', and is set on a single, square pedestal whose diagonal is at right angles to the axis of the case.30 This case is lit by small, round incandescent lights, set in the ceiling of the case, whose in- tensity is controlled by a rheostat. A transformer is built into the case to cut the electric voltage, and its heat, com- bined with the heat of the lights, raises the temperature to 83 ° when the lights are on full. The temperature is kept to 70° by lowering the lights to a sombre, holy, concealing level of intensity, which defeats the purpose of the case. The Audubon case at the other end of the floor has two glass sides that measure 4' x 10', with bronze frames and bronze end panels. It has exactly the same heat difficulty as the Gutenberg case for ex- actly the same reasons.31 ao The pedestals· on all the rest of the cases are of this type, and small enough so that they stand re- cessed below the case and are not very noticeable. They are hollow, and serve as the air conditioning intake ducts for the cases. 31 The most frightening aspects of the strange world of architects to librarians new at library building are its weird imprecision and radical lack of common sense. For instance, having made such a failure in such strategic elements as these cases, the librarian expects a firm with a high reputation to rush in to remedy the situation and wipe the blot from its escutcheon. Not at all! Some six months after the move into the Beinecke library, Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill were still blithely ignoring the univer- sity's pleas to do something about these cases. Since my study of the building, they have made an attempt at recovery by trying to increase the velocity of the air through the cases. when the most obvious solution The nine single cases on the east and west walls are attractive and well lit, and they place the materials at the right height for viewing and close enough so that ordinary typing is easily readable on the labels in the cases. 32 They have two glass sides 2' x 4', framed in bronze, and the ends are provided with frosted glass panels, against which color slides can be mounted for viewing. These cases are lit by three slimline fluorescent tubes, within the case but above a solid plastic diffuser, below which is a metal louvre formed of half-inch squares. These cases also had heat difficulties when they were first used, but this has been completely solved by cutting holes in the top of the case above the tubes an inch and a half in diameter. The holes let in dust, most of which is caught on the diffuser, but allow the the tempera- ture to be held to 70° in the cases. The bed of these cases is painted with a textured and toned Hat black paint that provides the best background for exhibiting materials that I have ever encountered. Devised by the Yale plant department, it is washable, shows no brush marks, can be applied to metal or wood, and is so inexpensive and simple to apply that they paint their 9ase beds once a year at Yale.33 / The long, Hat cases that Hank the glass vault on the main floor are totally suc- cessful, and this is where material is ex- hibited in connection with undergrad- uate courses. They measure 4' x 32' and are pedestal mounted and air condi- tioned. These cases completely avoid the is to remove the sources of heat from the cases, by placing the transformers remote from them (not easy but possible) and locating the lights outside of the case above a glass diffuser. These special cases were conceived too late in the planning to get a proper duct system. This problem could probably have been avoid- ed if the building had been programmed to begin with. 32 These cases can be seen in the background of the photograph on p. [145] of the Yale University Li- brary Gazette for April 1964. 33 Yale's formula: one gallon of Devoe's Flat Black oil paint; one pint of Martin Senour Radiant Red oil color pigment. To achieve the same tone and texture, these brands must be used, but your plant department can experiment, too. 212 I College & Research Libraries • May, 1965 usual surface reflections that are so dis- turbing in flat cases by lighting their interior with slimline fluorescent tubes mounted out of view in the sides of the cases. Light from the tubes, which are ·covered with plastic filter shields, is re- flected by a curved mirror into the cases through a polarized panel in such a way that the viewer is not aware of the light source. These cases, higher than usual for flat cases, place the material at the right height for easy viewing, and are handsomely well proportioned. Their flat-black painted beds are set on rollers in eight-foot sections that allow them to be pulled out into the open for mount- ing materials. THE EsTHETICS As indicated above, the exhibition head is very impressive, and the reading room floor is on the whole pleasant and appointed in fine taste. But when the ultimate question is posed-is it a beauti- ful building? the answer is-not quite. Looking at it from across the quadrangle for an hour on a tranquil evening made it clear that in fitting it to the surround- ing buildings, the architects had put to- gether forms, in the crosses and the fac- ing panels, that are not completely har- monious with each other. It is an ex- tremely strong building in the impact it makes on the viewer, very interesting, full of character, and highly original, and in a building these are perhaps qualities more to be desired than beauty. I have tried to make clear that this is, on the whole, an outstanding building, flawed (as are all buildings) at the points indicated, but very good in its most essential elements. It is a building that has pioneered in a number of ways, and one that thoroughly deserves the AlA-ALA award granted it in 1964. If some of the mistakes made in its be- getting are naive at this stage of library building, it is partly because postwar aca- demic library buildings have not been subjected to demanding scrutiny in pub- lic places, and partly because the rela- tionship between the architect and the librarian has not received sufficient com- ment to be understood in the library world. Let us hope that both deficiencies in information will be speedily remedied. •• Junior Members Round Table Orientation Session AN ORIENTATION SESSION cosponsored by the ALA Membership Committee and the Junior Members Round Table will be held for persons attending their first ALA conference and members eligible for JMRT, on Sunday, July 4, at 2 p.m. Frederick H. Wagman, immediate past president of ALA, will speak to the group on «The New Member and ALA." ••