The minutes for the October 18 meeting of the Alumni Council report on the presentation of Dean of Libraries Sue Mehrer:
The Call to Lead capital campaign proposes a rethinking of the Berry Library Experience; mapping programming needs; and developing design responses. Slides showed photographs of the assets and challenges of the current space, alongside renderings of the proposed renovations.
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A proposed option is to “stack” the floors into the workshop, fireside, the nexus, ideas lab, teacher/scholar, and the lookout. A connecting stair would be added to improve access and flow. Seminar spaces would be created for effective collaboration, along with visible research services support. There is a need to build for adaptability. The collections will never be completely digitized, and part of the goal of the redesign is allow more access to the diversity of the books and materials.
I agree 100 percent with Christopher Wall’s comments above about the Berry Library. I would only add that I thought the initial concept of making the exterior look like a New England factory building made no sense at all. It’s a library, not a bland New England factory building. The architects and builders pretty much achieved their goal, though. It looks like a factory building.
I gave up trying to like Berry long ago. Inside it’s a generic public space with hollow floors and walls that don’t seem permanent even when they are. Outside there’s the lame postmodern “arcade that is not an arcade” in front that actually does not shield you from the elements but does gives what would otherwise be an intolerable facade a modicum of interest. But the energy of the building is pointing … where? It feels like you are walking toward it at an oblique angle no matter where you are. The inside makes a kind of lame gesture toward having a “Main Street” (like a mall, perhaps?) with different work areas coming off of it that feel very similar once you’re working in them. There’s no sense of place anywhere I’ve been that really tells me where I am. Hopefully they can improve some of this when they renovate it.