'Good evening'
(My apologies, Alistair - I always wanted to do that!)
Perhaps I should warn you - I hold strong views and opinions on many issues. For example, Harold Godwinson's 'house carls' should NOT have broken the 'shield wall' and rushed down Senlac Hill in 1066, and if that enterprise had failed, then at least Prince Charles Edward Louis John Casimir Sylvester Severino Maria Stuart, commonly known as Bonnie Prince Charlie (King Charles III, as far as I - his clansman - am concerned) should have continued marching south, when he reached Swarkstone Bridge. The piece which follows contains strong views and opinions; they are my own, and I freely acknowledge them. In my defence, I can only say - you had to be there.
I recognize that change is all around us, and that buildings suffer from senescence, just as we do. However, there is change, and then there is change for change's sake, and we must remember that not ALL change is for the better. I work in Massachusetts, and there was a time when I enjoyed a nice job in Wellesley, the home of 2 (and a half) colleges, one of them exceedingly famous, being one of the 'Seven Sisters' and counting Madame Chiang Kai-shek, Madeliene Albright, Eleanor Roosevelt and one Hillary Rodham Clinton amongst its alumnae. Consequently, books mean a great deal in this community, and the benefactor of the new town, Horatio Hollis Honeywell, when he gifted this former suburb of Needham its Town Hall in 1885, made sure to include a Town Library in the building. This beautiful French Chateau style edifice (now on the National Register of Historic Places) still stands, but that cannot be said for the 1959 building which replaced it, on a site directly across busy Washington Street (it was far less busy on the 2nd July, 1776, when the first Commander of the Continental Army rode through on his way to take up his command in Cambridge).
I must immediately confess that I do NOT hold a degree in Library Science - I have just worked in them for the last 15 years. I am by training a metallurgist, textile technologist, industrial chemist and a museum curator; courtesy of the Royal Air Force, an air show co-ordinator; by inclination a military historian and industrial archeologist; a sometime published photographer and poor wordsmith. In other words - just your average denizen of any town library!
When the architect Carl Koch was asked to design a new library for the town in 1958, he immediately contacted his friend, György Kepes. Kepes was a true Renaissance man - film-maker, educator, author, photographer, and Impressionist painter - 'Language of Vision', Dover Publications, 1995, ISBN 0-486-28650-9; 'Graphic Form: The Arts As Related To The Book', Harvard University Press, 1949. He had just been asked to form what was to become the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and was happy to produce a series of over 50 unique enameled metal panels for Koch, which were to become an installation at the front of the new building, to welcome Library patrons. In those days, it was easy to move a library; I have seen photographs of a never-ending 'crocodile' of schoolchildren each carrying a few books across Washington Street, to their new home.
I was in the Inter-library Loan Department in the basement and had a wonderful time. Unlike my predecessor, who had decided to do the minimum - and rarely lent books outside of Massachusetts - I used to run the morning's print-out of loan requests with joy. Books do no good on library shelves, I used to say, and sent them flying around the world! I remember a volume on 'Hunt' Class destroyers which I sent to the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and a science fiction paperback to the Library of the Royal Court, in Copenhagen, Denmark! Thanks to WorldCat, we spread the word.
By 2001, the Library was beginning to show some signs of aging. I personally liked the echoes of Bauhaus (hardly surprising, since Walter Gropius was teaching at Harvard at the same time Koch was there) and the three level, central light well was an excellent feature. I will grant you that the top level of the stacks could become very hot in summer, but the building could have been renovated and extended with ease.
Instead, a faction arose which insisted we MUST have a new Library. I shall skip over the politics involved (which were brutal); suffice it to say that when the Selectmen visited, all seven of us were 'scrunched' together at our desks, making us look terribly overcrowded, and great pains were taken to show them the torn ceiling tile hanging down. This, and many other repairs, had been deliberately NOT done, in order to make the building look worse than it actually was.
The vote for a $13.4 million monster of a new Library passed in Town Meeting, with a huge cheering section of Library employees being urged to show vocal support at every opportunity. The Kepes panels were removed, put into storage, and the building torn down. Concerned residents who had a knowledge of art were told that the Kepes panels would be incorporated into the new design - and that they could trek across town to a series of prefabricated trailers, in the storage yard of the Town's Department of Public Works, where a portion of the book collections would be available to them, during the construction phase.
Then the blows fell. The Library had two beautiful branches; the one to the west was called Fells Branch, and consisted of a 19th century, single room building, with a lovely garden with play equipment to the rear. Children adored it! The Hills Branch was a gem - Colonial Revival, which was so superbly crafted that it was featured in the 1927 Architectural Digest, and was later placed on the National Register of Historic Places (#356524). Both Branches were to close, and there would be staff reductions, as well, at the Main Library, because, you know - progress! There was an uproar, particularly from the Branch members, as this was NOT what had been envisaged, but it was to no avail. After a while and under a great deal of pressure, it was allowed that private funding could be sought, to enable the closed Branches to re-open, and this was somehow managed.
As you can imagine, I could no longer work for an organization where the 'trust issue' had been shown to be so badly broken. One 'phone call, and I shuffled out of town to a specialist medical library in a teaching hospital, closer to Boston. I found the Director to be both kind and wise, and she and I are likely to hit retirement together.
Meanwhile, back at the Library, a few, a precious few of the Kepes panel WERE installed in the new building, but architects being architects, they were not about to allow any painter to get in the way of THEIR 'vision', and in the above photograph, you can see the result. Lumped together, horizontally in threes, surrounded by strong red brick which completely subsumes them, this is a disaster. To add insult to injury, they have been placed at the REAR of the building, opposite the 'disabled parking' spaces in the parking lot (which are the least used, anyway). Such was the public feeling about this, that a special volunteer committee had to be formed to find ways of utilizing more of the panels (six have gone into the new High School - out of context, of course).
As for the Library, the digital media room is on the first floor, as are the periodicals, children's room, book sales and check-out desk. The stacks, reference desk, public computers, and reading areas - are all on the second floor, up a winding marble staircase (there is an elevator on the first floor, but it is both slow and small)! All the things you think of as a 'library' are nowhere to be seen when you enter the building. What IS visible, however, is an over-size public room, capable of seating at least two hundred residents, and hosting recitals, meetings and art shows. It has been designed so that the main library can be locked off from the public entrance to this room, along with the rather nice underground garage and elevator to service those who had arranged for this to go into the plans.
If I were Governor (and I am unlikely to ever succeed Governor Patrick), I would frame a simple Law for the Commonwealth.
1. No body of Trustees or Friends of a Library is allowed to frame, promote, initiate, lobby for or otherwise encourage ANY scheme which materially alters the physical shape, size, appearance or uses of a Library, within the State of Massachusetts. This is to be left strictly to Town Officials, and Library Management, and is to be passed on an up or down vote at Town Meeting following assessment/advice from the Massachusetts Library Association.
2. NO Library is allowed to deface, alter or remove any artwork or art installation without receiving professional advice from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The MFA's ruling will be FINAL.
What of the Kepes panels, you say? I personally think that ALL the panels - wherever they now are - should be carefully removed and packed (I would sub-contract this task to the MFA) and then sent - as a gift - to the Kepes Institute, Museum, and Cultural Center in Eger, Hungary, where the artist is truly honored. I am sure that this would take U.S./Hungarian relations to a new level!
Oh, and one more thing, it would seem that there are now no guarantees that the two Branch Libraries will remain open past 2013, after all ! You may imagine my reaction to THAT little piece of news.
There, a view behind the curtain...........
http://peoplesmosquito.org.uk
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