ATHENAEUM

Exterior View - Sixth Street

Competition Entry

Athenaeum: Looking Forward

Team: James Heard, Chelsea Kilburn, and John Knuteson

Excerpt from Competition Board:

Projecting beyond the present situation of the library is an unnecessary endeavor. The progress of information technology has repositioned the library as a broad public institution, liberated from attending to the necessities of the object — allowing a slide toward pure space. Caught up in the confusion, the library houses only difficult objects, texts which reject the technological charge to become ethereal. The object slowly becomes an artifact to be enjoyed in a space tailored to its altered status. The library is, then, simultaneously monumental and intimate — presenting itself as public edifice and private retreat.

The library suggests public space as an intellectual refuge. A sunken plaza is obscured by a false façade on Sixth Street. In this retreat one may pass time observing activity in the reading room or on the ramp puncturing the building envelope. The entrance is along St. James — a vaulted passage that denies the exterior world. Upon entering the library, one is immediately found within the tracery of stacks. Three stories of steel frames filter light and support volumes of books. In the library, disparate forms are conjoined to create thoughtful spaces for the public to rest.