Project Description
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.
Project Publications
The Boston Globe, December 2003
Progressive Architecture, April 1994
The Boston Globe, November 1991
The Boston Globe, October 1991
The Boston Globe, September 1991
