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JUN

2010

by Adelyn Perez
AD Architecture Classics Featured
Institutional Architecture
Museums and Libraries Bronze
Connecticut Glass Granite
Marble SOM Steel

AD Classics: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript

Library / Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill
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SOM - Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Yale Universitys Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library is the largest building in the
world dedicated to the containment and preservation of rare books, manuscripts, and
documents. It was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill and is
located in New Haven, Connecticut. Prior to the completion of this project, Yale University
placed its rare books on special shelving in Dwight Hall, which was the Old Library in the
late 19th century. In 1930 these special books were relocated to Rare Book Room
collection in the Sterling Memorial Library. The Beinecke library was a gift from the
Beinecke family, and since 1963 has accomodated six major collections in its rare and
marvelous structure that coincides with the literary gems it stores, including those from
the Rare Book Room. The major collections are the General Collection, which are divided

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into the General Collection of Early Books and Manuscripts and the General Collection of
Modern Books and Manuscripts, the Collection of American Literature, the Collection of
German Literature, the Collection of Western Americana, and the Osborn Collection of
British Literary and Historical Manuscripts.
More information and images of the library after the break. The main concern that both
SOM and Yale University considered in the design of the library was the preservation of
the documents within it. The challenge was to provide ample lighting in the interior for
people to study and read and to make it a pleasantly habitable space while limiting the
amount of light that affects the stored volumes. The response became a beautiful choice
of classic materials gleaming amongst the neo-Classical and neo-Gothic buildings
surrounding the library in the Hewitt University Quadrangle on the campus.

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that are one and one-quarter inches thick and are framed by shaped light gray Vermont

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Woodbury granite. The sleak marble allows for enough light to filter into the interior

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Made of Vermont marble and granite, bronze and glass, the exterior gives the illusion that
the building is completely solid when viewed from the outside. Its windows, blocked in a
consistent linear rythmn along the exterior, consist of white, gray-veined marble panes

spaces without damaging the collections. The structure that frames these rectangular
blocks consists of of Vierendeel trusses, high, and 88 and 131 long, which transfer their

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loads to four massive corner columns. The trusses are made out of of prefabricated,
tapered steel crosses which are covered with grey granite on the outside and with
precast granite aggregate concrete on the inside.
The beauty of the library is enhanced by the large open plaza in which it is located.
Visitors enter from the ground level into a glass-enclosed lobby that reveals the grand

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2010

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by Adelyn Perez
AD Architecture Classics Featured
Institutional Architecture
Museums and Libraries Bronze
Connecticut Glass Granite
Marble SOM Steel

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Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

exhibition hall that holds the books. Beneath this level are two stories which contain the
mechanical equiptmnt and large book stack space on the lower level, and another stack
space, catalog and reference room, reading room and staff offices arranged around a
sunken court designed by Isamu Noguchi on the upper level.
When visitors first enter the building they are faced by two large marble staircases that
ascend up to the mezzanine level and a large glass tower that is the central core of the
building. The mezzanine level allows for people to rotate around the glass tower which
holds 180,000 volumes, centralizing the main purpose of the library. In total the library
presently holds 500,000 volumes and several million manuscripts, and SOMs design
serves to preserve and glorify the billions of words inscribed inside each rare book.

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29 JUN

2010

by Adelyn Perez
AD Architecture Classics Featured
Institutional Architecture
Museums and Libraries Bronze
Connecticut Glass Granite
Marble SOM Steel

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

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SOM Ezra Stoller of Esto

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

SOM Ezra Stoller of Esto

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Photographics

Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics

Architect: Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill

Location: New Haven, Connecticut

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Project Area: 125,262 square feet

29 JUN

2010

by Adelyn Perez
AD Architecture Classics Featured
Institutional Architecture
Museums and Libraries Bronze
Connecticut Glass Granite
Marble SOM Steel

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Project Year: Completed in 1963

Photographs: Courtesy of Ezra Stoller of Esto Photographics
References: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library and Skidmore,
Owings, & Merrill

Cite:
Perez, Adelyn. "AD Classics: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library / Skidmore, Owings, & Merrill" 29
Jun 2010. ArchDaily. Accessed 05 May 2015. <http://www.archdaily.com/?p=65987>

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29 JUN

2010

by Adelyn Perez
AD Architecture Classics Featured
Institutional Architecture
Museums and Libraries Bronze
Connecticut Glass Granite
Marble SOM Steel

jcarch

This is one of my all time favorites. Photo's can't do justice to how

beautiful the light coming through the stone is on the interior.
One thing I've never been able to figure out is how the main volume of
the building is supported. There's just 4 columns...and the depth of the
beam that would be at the top of those columns just seems too
shallow to hide a beam that could handle that span. And there doesn't
seem to be room in the frames around the stone panels to have turned
the whole facade into a truss (w/ no diagonals) any resistance to
deflection.

712

mssngvwl

'The structure that frames these rectangular blocks consists of

of Vierendeel trusses, high, and 88? and 131? long, which
transfer their loads to four massive corner columns.'

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mhash

If you look closely at the plan, you will see that there are columns
integrated within the glass wall. The same works on the interior within
the glass box.

GLK

This is also one of my favorite buildings. I'm not very fond of the
sunken plaza in front of it, but SOM wasn't the only firm building those
nasty things in the '60s.
Here are construction photos of the Beinecke, for whoever may be
interested:
http://beinecke.library.yale.e...

The Big Black &amp; White Zebr

Huh
The Elephant & Castle roundabout - London... but I'm thinking that
was derivative, surely...

David Basulto

clap, clap, clap

Matt

SOM at their best.

Rodrigo Duque

One of my XX century Top ten

The Big Black &amp; White Zebr

I don't want to take anything away from what I think is a still unique
creation...
But just going back to the Elephant & Castle roundabout... It's a
memorial to William Faraday - the physicist, and houses an electricity
sub-station for the metro line nearby. It has historical status and is not
a patch on the SOM effort, but two points to note...
Firstly it is credited as 1959-61 and SOM's library is 1963. Secondly, I
forget Faraday Memorial's architect but if you do a Google you'll see
stainless steel cladding... his original intention was for a glass box
exposing the machinations of the sub-station... and more like the
SOM effort... maybe the SOM client had more vision...

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29 JUN

2010

by Adelyn Perez
AD Architecture Classics Featured
Institutional Architecture
Museums and Libraries Bronze
Connecticut Glass Granite
Marble SOM Steel

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