Newton Public Library
The library is a part of an urban composition which links the existing neo-Georgian City Hall, the Library and Olmstead Park into a single, interrelated administrative and culture complex.
The building is entered from a fore-court facing the pond, and across a small footbridge from a parking lot. A spacious lobby joins the two entrances to the circulation desk and the Reference Hall.
The three-story library is grouped around the triple height clerestory-lit Reference Hall which is surrounded at its upper levels by carrels and extends to an apsidal reader’s space which on 3 levels overlooks a picturesque cemetery. Readers find themselves never remote from views of the central hall or the surrounding landscape of the park.
At the ground level there is a Children’s Library, the Reference Hall, a community multi-purpose hall, exhibition space and staff support space, at the upper levels readers’ spaces and audio-visual department. An oval staircase connects the front lobby with all the levels and a central staircase at the interior of the library makes for vertical connection.