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I am pleased to welcome you to this program, one of many in the season in the upcoming
season we have a very exciting program this afternoon
and I’m going to in a minute introduce Jonathan Massey
who will introduce our speaker but I wanted take a minute because I know not everyone
here is acquainted with Library Associates and it
won’t be a long commercial message but there is a brochure in
the back that tells a little bit about it but I want to tell you a little bit about
the benefits of membership and I’ll be very quick.
Here are some of the benefits for you to become a member of Library Associates. Invitations
to library associates lectures and events, free event
parking one block from Bird Library, invitations to member
receptions after lectures, access to library facilities and collections, borrowing privileges
at the right level, if you’re a patron level, or higher,
every issue of the Courant which is our Special Collections
newsletter, an invitation to our holiday reception, discount on our Spring luncheon tickets, and
last but not least opportunities to volunteer both
on the campus and in the community. And for that you can get
away from very little expense become a member and help to support among other things the
Library, the Special Collections, and we have this
historic we’re historic, we go back to Chancellor Tolley and its
founding so we have historic legacy but I the important thing about Library Associates
to me is that there are people still that believe in the
book and the printed word and want to honor it, not revere it
necessarily but honor it and keep it going and so your contribution will help us, help
the Library, and do something good for future generations, so
thank you and with that I want to introduce Jonathan Massey
who is Chair of the Bachelor of Architecture program at the esteemed School of Architecture
at Syracuse University, who will introduce our speaker
today.
Thank you. Thank you Jonathan.
There’s always a danger with these nested introductions that by the time we actually
give you Russell King you’ll be looking at your watch and
ready to go, so I’ll try to keep things sort and sweet.
There are not many architecture firms operating in the United States today that can trace
their history back to 1868 as you can well imagine, and
it’s really a remarkable testament to the quality and the
organization and the kind of esprit de corps of the King family that they have maintained
that practice and built it in ways that have responded to
the opportunities and challenges of each new generation
and each new era.
And I think of King & King in the same terms as we think of Crouse Hinds – or Carrier
Corporation, or Syracuse University itself. As part of the
legacy of expertise that has been build up at different moments
in the history of Central New York. And I was I attended a lecture last years
by the sociologist Saskia Sassen who is an expert at Columbia University on
globalization and especially on how cities and regions are transforming in response to
the new again opportunities and challenges of changing times
and she talked a little bit about the way centers of
manufacturing and industrial production like Syracuse built up huge investments in fixed
capital, the factories and canals and highways and railroads
and all of the facilities that it took to become a center of
manufacturing production. And that it’s all too often that we think those you know
those industries are dwindling and we need to get in on a new global
economy which is somehow located elsewhere. Her
key argument was in fact we’re Syracuse and other cities like it are already participating
in the global economy we just need to figure out how and
especially to figure out what sets of skills and expertise are
built up were built up in the manufacturing economy that now have relevance somewhere
else. I thought that this was an especially lucid
analysis because just a few days before on a flight up from New
York I had been seated next to a young engineer from Dubai who was coming to Syracuse to get
trained on how to operate the switching equipment
that his company used in oil fields in the Persian Gulf and
he said yes, all of our equipment is made by Crouse Hinds. He comes from Syracuse and
that and we send people regularly to Central New York
to get trained for our booming oil economy in the Persian
Gulf and so I thought that was a perfect kind of confluence of anecdote and analysis that
suggested that in fact Syracuse that reminded me of all the
different sets of knowledge, experience, capability and
expertise that are vested in this city and its region. And that our participating in
broader circuits of capital and innovation.
And Syracuse has not often been at the top of the list of architectural innovation but
our very strongest legacy here is the firm of King @ King, which
like those other larger institutions like the University itself
has really built up an expertise that today is concentrated on medical and healthcare
facilities, hospitals, and other other healthcare buildings in educational
facilities, K-12 but also in higher education and in
fact we could say that King & King and Syracuse University have kind of shaped each other
reciprocally over the you don’t often get to say this
but over the centuries, over the many decades, nearly well let’s
say more than 150 years of we’re coming up on 150 years of collaboration when we look
at the list of buildings that King & King has contributed
to the campus we could start with Tolley Hall and Crouse
College, but it goes right out through the latest building projects and includes especially
a lot of post- World War Two work like bird library probably
the most prominent of those post war commissions, but
including also HB Crouse Hall, the biological research building, the physics building, the
Belfer audio archive, the Heroy Geology library, and link
hall just to mention the projects that Russell King our speak
tonight was directly affiliate with.
King & King has also been a firm that is helped other architects build here in Syracuse, such
as their work with ….on the first Newhouse and so we its
almost impossible I think for us to picture Syracuse
University without the work of King & King shaping our vision because the campus that
we know today is so largely a product of their work. And
likewise I’m sure that reciprocally that the commissions from
and the support of and educational inputs of the university into this family history
this architectural dynasty are not insignificant either and it’s
the chance to do projects at Syracuse that helped them
become you know a state wide experts and prominent designers of buildings in education and
healthcare. So that’s sort of I guess what comes to mind when I think about is illustrious
firm, Russell King as you may know graduated from Syracuse
University in 1952 and after a stint in the Navy has
worked here in his family’s firm since I guess 1956 or 7 and has played such a great
role in shaping the campus and probably the building of his that
means the most to us this evening is the one we’re
standing in, Bird Library the intellectual hub of the campus for sure and now according
to the food service people I talked to the coffee hub
as well. So thank you very much and I introduce Russell King.
Better than I could do it.
Thank you very much for that introduction it was great, it traced a lot of the interesting
history that we have with the University we’re very proud
of our work here. If I had a lot more courage than I do I’d
probably do this whole presentation from the podium using
PowerPoint but because of my advancing age and little knowledge of PowerPoint itself
I’m going to do it like the old days except that I give bow to
the computer to keep my crib notes. So with that I’ll begin.
Time of the talk today is Designing the Bird: And Architects Tale, and we had a lot of fun
trying to decide how to title this thing because I don’t
know it was eight or nine months ago or maybe almost a year that
Harvey Kaiser asked me to do this and I said I would but I didn’t really know what I
was going to do and Mary Beth asked me what are we going to title
this and I gave her a few titles that I wanted to keep it
cryptic enough so that I can talk about whatever I decide to when I get there. And uh, she
finally suggested this and I think it fits very well.
An Architects Tale well if you look up tale in the dictionary you might find it could
be a story or could be a story. And I hope this is a story my memory
of what happened during the process of giving this great
building together. Before I go further I’d like to acknowledge
a couple of people, Mary Beth Hinton over here who was so
great at helping to point me in the right direction to find the materials that I needed
because my memory is failing. And Kathleen White of course
for making the arrangements here today. Mary O’Brien
and the Archives, who after the Dean told me that there was a model I wanted to look
at it and I said by gosh we made it. And would we like to use
it so here it is. And John Green’s The Tolley Years, and also
the preceding part of the history of the University. Probably
the least reliable and also should acknowledge Jen Wells who is not here who was here earlier
part of the King & King staff who helped me with all
of this and Lisa Maynard who is here and probably the least reliable of all of
the things that I used to put this together are my memories.
So if I make the mistake and I may, you’ll forgive me in advance. Besides which, we’ve
got quite a few of our friends and relatives here so if there’s
any kind of an uprising I think we have a pretty good chance
of that. To start to think about this it was a long
time ago, and I mentioned my memory. It was 51 years ago as a
matter of fact, 1957 when I first took part in what was to become the Bird Library. I
was 28 years old, but as I thought further about the Library
I thought you know King & King has a unique history which
was mentioned and it’s sort of parallel to the University’s arc the firm that was
to become King & King was founded in 1868 by Archimedes Russell.
Syracuse University was founded in 1870 so we beat you.
But also another interesting fact was that Archimedes Russell designed three out of the
first four buildings on the campus and King & King is
very proud of that heritage, and the beat goes on.
And I’d like to acknowledge some of the people that are here, Sara I always our a
new business development, Lisa Maynard, is one of her great
helpers, and you can even hopefully the fifth generation
here, Alex King sitting next to his dad that’s the kid with the hair.
He’s a junior in the school of architecture and someday he may be part of this whole thing.
Pete King is one of the partners, next to Alex, Jim King also and if those two guys
look alike iws because they’re twins. Bob Secor not to be forgotten,
is was a partner in the firm along with me for many years.
He and I both retired, carry the title of “consulting partner”, now what does that
mean. Anybody ask you anything recently?
Me too. But it’s a great title but it’s in lieu
of responsibility and salary. Bob headed our design team for almost thirty
years and had a lot to do with some of the buildings that
you see up here and including this one. Going back to history, Archimedes Russell
was born in Massachusetts in 1840 he lived until 1916 when
he died. He came here in 18 probably about 1865 or 6 following the Civil War and was
apprenticed to Horatio White. He was also 28 years old when
he opened his own firm in 1868. He designed a couple of
buildings that are notable at Cornell, McGraw Hall and Sibley Hall which were built in the
early 1870s but most notably for this tale, he designed three
out of the first four buildings including the Holden
Observatory, which is a little building that was moved a few years ago and the first library
the Von Ranke Library and also the Crouse College for Women
which I mentioned earlier. I think the Von Ranke Library that Jonathan
mentioned earlier. I would think the Von Ranke Library
which is now the Tolley building, probably named after the donor but that isn’t the
case. It was named after the collection that was brought from
Germany to be housed in that building and it was said that
part of the requirements for obtaining that collection that there is a whole story that
goes behind that as some of you know, that the building had
to be as fire-proof as possible including iron pipe book cases
and an iron stairway. And that’s what was said about that building.
Archimedes also taught at the school of architecture between 1873 and 1881 and it was a volunteer
position at that time. And he one of our partners now, Kirk Narburgh is also teaching in the
school of architecture, in fact he was here a few minutes
ago and I said Kirk can’t you cut class and come down
and listen to this thing and he said I dare not do that. So
Thanks And the school of architecture at that time
was one of only three in the country. Most architects at that
time apprenticed to some other architect and that’s how they learned their profession.
So where did the King & King come in?
That was my grandfather was the first King and he came he was from Lafayette and the
story was that he used to walk in once a week and he worked
for Archimedes Russell as an apprentice and after 6
months I think Archimedes said now how long have you been here and he said 6 months and
he said well don’t you think we ought to start paying
you. And he thought that was a good idea, but in those
days he shoveled the coal into the furnace and he took out the ashes and he swept the
floors and sharpened pencils. But that’s how the business
profession was learned in those days. My grandfather made a partner in 1906 as a
result of his being what we would today call the project
architect on the Onondaga county courthouse which is down in downtown Syracuse. It’s
about 100 years old.
So that and there just putting a new domed roof on it Andy knows all about it.
My dad who is also a Syracuse grad came into the firm in 1924 following graduation, made
a partner in 1930 and one of the stories he told me and
I’ll never forget it, it’s embedded in my mind, is that in 1933
in the depths of the depression and I hope we aren’t heading for something like that
now, that gross receipts in the office were 300 dollars. 300
dollars. Well that might be 3,000 today but still it
wasn’t much money. And the only people in the firm were my
dad and my grandfather and they just sat around playing cards and answer the phone.
But that was following 1933 a prohibition had ended and that’s when the hotel Syracuse
decided to reconstitute their bar, the Rainbow Lounge,
and that was the commission that brought in the 300 bucks.
So that’s kind of the interesting history of the firm, very brief. Let’s fast forward
to the Tolley years, which is where this library Chancellor Tolley
was the driver for this building. He came to the University in 1942, he was
the youngest college president I believe in the country and
when he retired in 1969 he was the longest tenured president. Little known facts that
might come up on a test someday.
Like this was substantial in this community and of course at the University. He was one
of the few giants it was said. I can’t tell you who said it.
Somebody said it in this area. And he truly was highly respected,
not only at the university. I’m sure there were some people that didn’t like him, but
he was quite a guy. In 1943 World War 2 was on, Tolley chaired
the post-war planning commission for Syracuse and
Onondaga County and I think that people respected his vision and he was a visionary and at that
time he revealed his vision of what Syracuse University
was to become, which was a major research university.
He estimated at the time that 20-30 buildings would be required to bring it to that point,
where it would service this research university. He was just
about correct. I think there were more than probably about
30 buildings built. We did maybe 20 of them. Which was
great, great thing, but how did we get involved in all of this. Tolley was quite a remarkable
guy to me he was a visionary who often said make no small
plans. During 1943-45 he recognized that he needed a lot
of land to complete his vision. He was a land baron. He added nearly a thousand acres of
property to the university holdings including much of it around
this area. Old houses and whatever he could buy, he
bought. I’m not sure how he financed it but he was good with money.
In 1943 during the war the draft age was lowered from 21 to 18 that took about almost half
of the enrollment out of the university at the time.
It went from 3800 which it had been prior to the war or
went from 6000 prior to the war down to 3000 or 3800 so he added military unites and military
education which was somewhat controversial but it helped pay the bills. As the war went
on the GI Bill was put into place to in 1946 and we had what
was referred to as the GI Bulge. In 1946 the enrollment
was had swelled 15000. By the next year it was 18000. The need for space was huge.
He owned a lot of the the University owned a lot of the cottages there and converted
to dormitories and bought other buildings that were converted
to dormitories for housing some of the students initially
were housed at the State Fair in some of the animal buildings. Actually in the horse pens.
There were buildings in at the State Fair that were used contend road the Carrier plant
and Baldwinsville and all over the place. There were blue buses
running all over the city and this is how the how it was in
those days and I happened to be in school about that time so I know that the enrollment
was huge there were all these older guys that were back from
the service I was 18 year old apple cheeked youth at the
time. But the Chancellor recognizing the need for space had said that he bought 700 war
surplus prefabricated buildings for a dollar a piece.
Not a bad deal. Some were else I read that it was only 300
so there might be a discrepancy there but nonetheless a lot
of buildings to get in place. And so that’s where King & King came into play.
We were called upon with a team of engineers, landscape architects, and planners to get
these buildings in place so that they could be used. Getting
heat in them, getting foundations done, roads, and parking,
plumbing and so forth. There wasn’t much much character to it but it was war work as
Gordon Smith, one of the a retired industrialist who’d
been made a Vice President of the University said. It was fast and
furious. And I guess it was. The only interesting architecture which unfortunately
is now gone or maybe fortunately it’s gone was
the Quonset-eria some of you might be old enough to remember. It was two huge Quonset
huts. I tried to find out how big they were but they were
monstrous and connected with the dining with the kitchen
and the food services so they served about 500 people at a sitting and there were a lot
of sittings. It was guilt out on the site where Manley Field House
is now, along with that whole area of Manley was
covered with temporary buildings. That’s how we got our feet wet at Syracuse.
24:00 We became the associate architect to Lorimer
Rich and Robins??? in 1948 when some of the new
buildings in Tolley’s vision were being conceived, the Women’s Building, the Law
College, Shaw Dormitory, and several other buildings.
Rich was from and his partners were from New York City, their famous building that put
them on the map was the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that
was built after World War I in New York City. Rich had a
great reputation. But by the mid-fifties, his role became somewhat
diminished and the Chancellor the Chancellor’s impatience I think contributed to this. Rich
was a very contemplative style, had a contemplative style.
Well let’s just say that schedules and budgets and timely decisions weren’t his bag. He
needed to think more about it.
Rich was not fired but according to some of the material that I’ve read he was substantially
blistered by several letters from the Chancellor decrying
his lack of movement on these projects. Chancellor was not
one to be delayed. And it sort of just morphed into King & King and Rich sort of switched
roles. We became the architects, he was the associate,
and soon Rich just seemed to fade out of the picture. He
was never fired, he wasn’t terminated, but just so happened that he faded away like all
good soldiers maybe.
So we became the architect for the university and we were called on daily. We had to renovate
a cottage over here for an ornithology professor
who had been hired and was coming to the university and need a laboratory. We had to fix a loading
dock on the back of Bowden Hall. We had to create a
laboratory in one of the other buildings for a professor that had just been hired. We did
everything. We actually became by 1956 we were an arm of
the University. Clark Auburn who was one of the vice
presidents we were very close at the time said you know we should be paying you guys
for some of this stuff. Some of it was so small I mean it would
take more time to create a bill that it would to do the job.
So we did a lot of thing gratis. But we agreed we should be paid. And I guess we were.
We did everything. We were the design and construction department until Harvey Kaiser
so ably established one, a real one, in 1972. Harvey
reminded me of the day. About the time this building was being completed.
Now enter Mrs. Carnegie. And that’s who we’re here to talk about. The Library. Not
the Carnegie Library but Mrs. Carnegie the myth. It was 1957. I’d
carried Chancellor called my dad and said I need a plan
picture and a model for the new library. What new library? For Mrs. Carnegie. Obviously
a potential donor. We knew there was a new library in
the offing but this was the first call. So this is where it all
began. 1957 with the Chancellor’s call. So the Chancellor articulated his vision of
what the Library should be along with Wayne Yenawine who
was then not only the Dean of Library Science but also the Head Librarian. And it seemed
like almost overnight we created it. Not this model and
not this plan but a model and a plan on a site which was the
opposite as I remember it was opposite Sims Hall on that block that was full of fraternity
houses and other houses the Pace center and other science
buildings. It was not the real site and it seems like it was
done overnight. Probably took us a couple of weeks but it was I think Chancellor Tolley
realized he was giving us an impossible assignment but we
also knew at the same time that he expected us to do it. So
we did. And by the way we never found out who Mrs.
Carnegie was. I never met her and I don’t ‘even know
whether she existed or not but. In 1960 by 1960 and then there was some activity
in the interim period on the library but not much. The
Chancellor was anxious to get started. He didn’t have a donor he didn’t have the
financing in place but he understood that lead time that we couldn’t
design this building and get it built overnight. So he asked
us to get started on the library. We actually assigned it a job number which is tattooed
on my arm 60- 124.
But it didn’t have a name. Was it about to happen? Looking – I know it was but at
the time we weren’t too sure. So the programming that is the getting
the requirements from the librarian and the library
staff began. And it was excruciating. We sat in meetings and listened and this one would
talk and that one would talk and the head librarian would
talk and then this one would talk and there was absolutely
no leadership with all due respect to Wayne who was a great guy there was so democratic
that if you had an idea and you had an idea well they
were ideas and nobody questioned them. So we listened and
listened and listened and listened. And we got nowhere.
29:59
So there was a hiatus in the planning, but the Chancellor and vice chancellor Piskor
and other administrators were anxious and the said why
don’t you people, you architects, engineers and library
people – we want you to see the best libraries that there is in the country. So that meant
travel coast to coast, and travel we did.
We went to Harvard, and MIT, Cornell. I’m not sure why we went to Cornell. Notre Dame,
Washington at St. Louis, UCLA, Stanford, Wayne State
in Detroit, University of Oregon, Washington at St. Louis and
there probably was others but that’s all I can remember.
We got great information. We travelled as architects looking at the architecture and
the planning that was done, the library staff was looking at
the technical issues of how the library would function, so we
were both getting excellent information. We would see things that they didn’t, they
would see things that we didn’t. And that’s a great way
to research with your client. And we did this often.
So we had all this great information. The staff was motivated and ready to go. We got
back, started our committee meetings. And started listening
again. And listening, and listening.
Trying to inject some ideas. Nothing was happening. It was all just like we’d started over again.
Then we said the only way we said to ourselves the
only way we’re going to get a program is we’re going to write
it. We know what’s needed, we have a pretty good idea of what this program ought to be.
We’ll write it. So we wrote the program and it wasn’t perfect.
Well we didn’t expect that it was. Nothing the first time you do it on paper my grandfather
says you make all your mistakes on paper. So we submitted
the program to the library. Wow, yes this you know
well how about this and how about that. Well there were adjustments made in the program
and finally we got some agreement. This was the only way we could get it we laid
something in front of them and they critiqued it. We made
the changes just the way you do in an architectural design process. So we finally had our program.
And we knew that there were three million items to be included, a million and a half
books and a million and a half other items, 2500 reader stations,
and it yielded a plan of about 300,000 square feet which is
a big building. And you’re in it and you know that it’s big.
Now looking at the University master plan, where was this building to go? Actually by
this time we had a site but let me tell you the story.
With a five block area between – bounded by University Place, Walnut Avenue,
Waverly and Irving avenues. A big five block area and it
was to be, according to the master plan which I think we helped to create, a high density
academic center.
And so we looked at this area and actually I had forgotten this but there were actually
three buildings that were going to be the library. The centerpiece
was this building which was going to contain principally graduate and research facilities
and some of the undergraduate collections. Phase two and
three were a building to the east which is over where the Belfer building is, on top
of a five hundred car parking garage which may or may never be completed
worked on. And then the west there was the college library which was to be connected
to the student union. So that was the general plan but Bird was
in that plan was to remain as upper division research library.
But as it happened you know that all of those functions ended up in this building.
So we now had a site we had selected this site because of its proximity the campus and
its being central to this high density development and as the
university moved north it became more central. And so it’s
a sort of a keystone in the whole campus plan. So finally the chancellor announced that we
have a site. He announced that the building size was about
three hundred thousand square feet, the estimate was
9.8 million and it was this site. That sounds pretty simple we should be able to get started
immediately. However it turns out that this site is a city
park its at the end of Walnut Park and if you’re familiar with
this are you realize that Walnut Park used to extend all the way to the University Place.
There was a little glitch in the in obtaining this plan while city was willing to give it
or sell it to the university. There was a reversionary clause
in the contract when the Comstock family I think donated
this land to the university, said that if the site ceased to be used as city park then
it reverted to the back to the Comstock and the family. But Chancellor
Tolley was pretty good with negotiating with people and
cajoling and he and some good law work got it done. But the
35:25 heirs had no object but I’m sure that was
due to Tolley’s spirit and discretion. So we did have a site in
fact, but the land swap was proposed by the city
to give them an equal amount of land at the north end of
the Walnut Park. But as far as I know the land swap never happened
and I hope there’s nobody here from the city to try
to dredge up that agreement. Also, Mr. and Mrs. Bird became were on board
and had made their agreement to finance a big chunk of
this library. Maybe Mrs. Bird was Mrs. Carnegie – we never know that. The Chancellor announced
the gift at three million dollars. So now we have
a donor, our job number 60-424, I hope that doesn’t bore
you too much, has a name Ernest Stevenson Bird Library and its 1967.
The Chancellor announced a gift for three million dollars, actually it was about two
million eight and when Mr. Bird read the announcement I thought
he might be mad but actually he came up with the
difference so he did contribute the three million.
It was the largest alumni gift up to that point. So now we’re ten years into the project.
The game is on. We have a program, a preliminary design, a site and a donor. And final design
is ready to proceed but the design board.
The design board was created in the early 50s because the university recognized that
there was a lot of building to be done to create Tolley’s dream
of a research a national research university. And it was decided by the Trustees that there
ought to be a special committee to oversee those designs.
So the design board was created about 1953 and that wasn’t just for this project it
was for all projects all projects that we or anybody else did had to
go before the design board. And so they were charged with reviewing and
approving. Tolley really enjoyed the design board process.
One of the vice presidents said that the design board was a recreation outlet for the Chancellor.
When I look back I read that recently and I look
back and I think that it was true. He enjoyed all of the
interchange. He knew exactly what was going on in this University and in the community
all the time. He was kind of like a dean of students. He walked
round and he knew everybody and he had an amazing
capacity for detail. And so after one particular contentious meeting and I think Bob and I
were there, it was pretty obvious we were kind of disgruntled
by some of the one of the board members comments and he kind of continually gave us a hard
time. He had some architectural background and he
would say well I think it needs more study. This needs
more study or that needs more study and we weren’t getting anywhere.
So the chancellor came up to us as everybody kind of filed out and we were picking up our
stuff he said to Bob and I - I don’t know if my dad was
there or not. He said now listen, don’t let whatshisname get
you ruffled. Some votes count more than others. Mine. He didn’t really say mine but we knew.
39:04 So we finally got our approval.
One other story I’ll tell you about Tolley that’s totally unrelated to this building
but it has something to do with the university. We were working on
a project which shall remain nameless and a dean who shall
remain nameless and we always took the projects up to the Chancellor’s office and sat around
and he looked at what we were doing. On this particular
project he spotted something right away that wasn’t
right. We knew it, he picked it up immediately. He said what are you doing that for. I said
well Chancellor the dean wants it that way. He
said don’t pay any attention that guy is a nut. Do it right.
He was pretty frank with us. He was quite a guy.
The next twelve months or so are full of activity we were off and running with final design.
And there were federal funding there was utilities to
get out of the way and we’re developing the final design and
site plan. Was also a water plant being designed at the same time not only for this building
this was going to be the first building on it but for
a portion of the campus. Sometimes the costs of that is kind of
lumped into the library. Unfairly I think but nonetheless that’s the way some of the
literature. So we’re off and running and as we’re taking in June
of 1969 another number that’s tattooed on my other arm is
11,689,000. That was the bid. As I recall. Construction was relatively routine. This
is a big building it has some complicated things in it, but it went
along quite well. Building as I remember was opened in September
1972 and although I was confused I went back and
looked at my own records that we dedicated it in April 1973 but I found out that both
of those dates are correct.
41:19 So the final cost of the library was about
twelve and a half million after furniture fees and so forth. For
about three hundred thousand square feet, forty two bucks a square foot. The cost today
I don’t know 70-80 million dollars maybe. I have a hard
time dealing with those numbers. I thought 11 million don’t
quote me now was a lot of money, but it’s hard for me to understand the numbers that
our firm deals with today.
The sidebar I think this was the first building that we actually had a written architects
contract and the reason we had that was because of the federal
funding they said you know we need to see the contract
the building was about half finished or maybe it was just starting but we wrote the contract
and previous to that time it was a letter, exchange
of letters and a handshake and off we went. But the other buildings you wouldn’t do
that today, and we didn’t do it following that we recognized the
need for good contracts, good business practice. Talking a little bit about the design.
And the reason I didn’t use the podium and the reason I didn’t use the PowerPoint is
that I like to move around a little bit so I will talk a little
bit about the design. The site plan as I mentioned the site was
the focal point in the university and was going to become a
focal point in the university at this time and as it turns out it did.
The model when we were finished if you are still awake you can come up and take a look
at the model it really tells you about the site and how it
works. Before I go any further, I just want to mention
Dr. Don Healy sitting here in the back. I told him I put him
in this presentation but I didn’t tell him about it because I was afraid it would scare
him off. But Don was the guru of what’s coming next what is information
retrieval what is electronic communication what did
we know at that time. Don worked with us on almost every building we did to help us anticipate
what the needs were going to be in the future.
The site sloped from the university place side down to Waverly which gave us an opportunity
to get entrances at two levels. Now we wanted this
building to sit on a flat site so we flattened this side so that
we could have a plaza all the way around it. And one of the things about a library for
those of you who work in a library this size you know that the
service to this building a building like this is very heavy. In this case probably the heaviest
service on the campus with the exception of say food service.
The mail, the books, the periodicals, and stuff that comes
in processed and goes out to the other parts of the library system on the campus in huge.
So the processing area technical services area of
the library is a big one, and there’s a lot of movement of goods
and services. We didn’t want a back door. None of the research that we did at any of
the other libraries around the country had really solved that
very well. UCLA probably came the closest. They recognized it
and they had a sub-grade tunnel out to a parking lot but the tunnel itself impeded traffic
around the building. So but it gave us an idea that maybe
we could do something and we could not have a back
door. And I think there’s a lot of people don’t know where the back door is. Because
if you walk around the building it all looks you know there’s
no loading docks, no dumpster. But down below, in technical
processing area there’s a tunnel. And it goes through under the plaza, and comes up
in a little building over on the side which contains an elevator
and a loading dock and all the stuff that goes in a loading
dock where stuff comes in. And goes into the processing area.
So that’s how we solved that problem and I think it worked at the time. I don’t know,
Dean does it still work?
Yes. The answer is yes.
That’s the answer. And to go any further the building plan of
which you can’t see up here which I can tell you a little about .
The building itself is very symmetrical, it’s square, it’s approximately the same on all
four sides. Looking at the Waverly Avenue entrance here on the
North went into a big open area. These dots here are
columns and they’re actually, there’s one there and there’s one there, and over
here and over there. And that’s a 26 by 26 foot module. And that’s
what really shaped the building. Because if fit exactly the
typical spacing of the book stacks. Other than that none of the other elements really
had a major effect on shaping the building. But that was sort
of the beginning. That was the module that started
developing on. And we continued that throughout everything
else fit within that. The processing and periodical library were
at the lower level I don’t have that plan but take my word for
it. At the lower level and that’s partly connected to the tunnel. There was also a
big reading room for the current periodicals.
Processing at that time was computerized. Must have been pretty primitive by today’s
standards but nonetheless there was a computer operation
down there. Looking at the rendering here this is the
Waverly Avenue side and the first two floors were the open
public floors, easily accessible, and I’m glad to see that they are now again easily
accessible. Because at one time they weren’t.
But the whole building has adapted reasonably well. So the first two floors on the elevation
here were open public floors contained reader services,
the catalog, general reading space, and now a coffee shop.
That didn’t exist at the time, was supposed to be connected right directly to the student
union. But at any rate then going up in the upper
floors for three, four, and five were identical in plan. And they
were the stack floors. Again our 26 by 26 foot module, the central
elevator of course, and services. And then on the sixth floor was the rare books
and special collections area was deeply set back and it
says it’s saying to me that you know it’s a different kind of space, its special. And
it is. Those of you who have been there recognize that.
And topping off the building is this deep cornice which sets the whole building, terminates
the building, and unifies the whole composition. The stairs
at the corners at each corner, there’s a vertical stair and a
shaft way for the mechanical, electrical equipment. And anticipating some of Don’s future requirements
we thought there was going to be a lot of wires out back in those days.
But we didn’t want to add cost to the building to include those things so we provided places
where those wires and pipes could be threaded through
at a later time. And as a matter of fact during construction the university decided that the
building should be sprinklered. We sort of cringed at that.
We’re going to see all the sprinkler piping especially where the structure is close.
But as it turned out we had left chases through the beams and the sprinkler pipes on the stack
floors were simply threaded through those chases
that we left and now the sprinklers are set up within the
structure. You can still see them but they’re not hanging down on pipe hangers and so forth.
So it was fortuitous that we thought about wires and ended up being sprinkler pipes.
But it worked. Security control were major issues in the
library at that time so that on the first floor we entered here
on the upper floor on the second floor we entered here via bridge which has been removed,
but I understand it is going to be reinstated.
But there were major control points at those entrances. To prevent any loss of the books.
There were alarmed exits so if you went through an exit into one of the stairwells on the
upper floors theoretically the security person can catch
you by the time you got out to the plaza. And you’re
outdoors outside. The fact is you can see it on this here’s the exit door right there.
A sidebar, and I talked about automation information retrieval, Don Healy, it was in the late sixties
and I mentioned how did we accommodate it and what
did we know at the time. But anticipation was the
name of the game. Fact is all of the buildings that we designed, the dormitories, they had
wire ways placed. We didn’t want to add cost and I
explained how that happened. One of the questions that was asked if you
can believe it during the design and even while we were
dealing with Don and his anticipation of the needs for information retrieval, someone said
well, are we still going to have books in the library?
Or will it all be electronic media to be retrieved somehow into a
study carrel. Don remembers some of that stuff. So it was a question. A lot of things we didn’t
know about the information age that was to come.
The nuts and bolts of the building it’s a poured in place reinforced concrete, I mentioned
the module established the building and its expressed
on the exterior with these columns here which hold up this
faceted screen which provides an interesting place as a matter of fact during the last
month or so I’ve tried to put this together to refresh my memory
about what this building is all about I worked in some of
those stack floors, against the outside windows. And the deep fins of the varying size windows
provide really a human scale to those the big spaces.
And it was a very pleasant experience for me to work
there. Quiet, and glimpses of the campus made me want to go back to school again.
It’s a little late for that. But it was fun being there and it was fun
doing that research and putting this together. The exterior is
either poured in place concrete on the exterior, has sandblasted as have these columns you
can see the aggregate on the columns and its’ a pink
granite. And the screen elements on these floors and
the balusters here were precast concrete with a light wash
and exposed aggregate. So there you have it. The Bird Library: Designing
the Bird an Architect’s Tale. Sixteen years in the making.
I was much younger when it started. I was much younger when it was finished.
I’d be very happy to answer any questions as long as they are reasonable.