ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, January 5, 1997 TAG: 9701030119
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: RICHMOND
SOURCE: EDWIN SLIPEK JR. LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
This city knows grand public buildings. Thomas Jefferson designed the state Capitol, after all. But these days the eyes of the city are on the new Library of Virginia.
In terms of price tag, $43 million, and purpose and accessibility, it is the most significant government building in the capital city in 50 years. One notable building, the West Wing of the Virginia Museum, was paid for largely by private dollars. Other government buildings, like the James Monroe office tower or the Department of Motor Vehicles campus, pack little aesthetic punch.
The Library of Virginia had outgrown its late-'30s style building that epitomized state-of-the-art library design when it was completed in 1940. A stone's throw from the statehouse and Executive Mansion, it became damp and posed serious fire and security risks. After 56 years, it was bursting at the seams with some 1 million books, documents and artifacts and was too aged to manage today's technology.
The city of Richmond gave the state a choice piece of real estate one block west of the heart of state government, the Capitol and the General Assembly Building. The new library that has arisen on that property opened Friday. Here's an architectural view of the state's newest landmark, along with information on what's inside and how to use the library - even if you don't visit Richmond.
New library is a testament to the written word
Yikes. The starship has landed.
The Commonwealth's massive new Library of Virginia in downtown Richmond is so aggressively modern it could have swept down under cover of darkness. Huge, flap-like entrance canopies fronting East Broad Street resemble the space station docking bays from "Star Trek."
The location on Broad Street - the capital city's main thoroughfare, with eight traffic and parking lanes - is a prominent one. A succession of handsome old and new commercial, governmental and educational buildings along this stretch is an essay of memorable, if not always distinguished, architecture.
It is positioned near such powerful statements as the classical First Baptist Church and the Addams Family-esque Old City Hall, and its replacement, the "Mussolini Modern" City Hall. The new library, with 316,500 square feet, is like a lumbering elephant that padded down the street and settled onto a full city block bounded by Broad, Marshall, Eight and Ninth streets.
The library wears two faces. While it may be modernism-on-steroids outside, on the inside patrons will discover exhilarating, light-filled, surprisingly warm and ceremonious spaces worthy of Virginia's priceless collection of some 1 million books, maps and historical documents.
Skidmore Owings and Merrill, with offices nationally, was the architect. (The Glave Firm of Richmond served as associate.) For a half century SOM has distinguished itself internationally as a leader in modern design.
Speaking to the historical and scholarly purposes the building serves, the design says it is a bastion of knowledge and a place to protect state treasures.
The street-level exterior facade has slightly raked walls with distinct blocks of granite facing. It recalls a Florentine palace. Unlike fortress-like classical palazzos, however, the facade is punctuated with large openings that create a strong sense of entry. Dramatic metal canopies extend over a broad flight of granite steps.
Adding to the building's powerful but jarring street presence is the subtle, but important, matter of siting. The mammoth facade doesn't line up with the flanking City Hall or the spiffy new Theater Row complex on its west. The building is too far from the street.
Dark sidewalks add to its self-containment. Pale concrete and red brick are the norm in Richmond. The charcoal pavement shows that the designers saw the library as a stand-alone monument rather than as a polite neighbor on the street.
While the exterior meshes classicism and modernism in an uneasy, but impressive marriage, the interior is a different story.
The soaring, three-story entrance atrium will take its place as one of the state's great interiors. Every bit as heroic as the exterior, it achieves what good architecture aspires to but seldom achieves: to use proportion, materials, craftsmanship and light to lift the spirit. The building pulls one along.
Visitors immediately know they're in a library. Their eyes move up to the second-floor stacks, visible through glass walls. Looking straight ahead and up the granite staircase, they find the rare-book room. Reading rooms encircle the atrium.
Bookshelves and paneling in rich cherry and tiger maple wood veneers add warmth. Through generous window openings, these spaces also allow marvelous new views of the surrounding city. So whether one is sequestered for an hour, or a day of research, the building connects with the outside elements of daylight and weather while providing comfortable working space.
As if this handsome structure were not testament enough to the building's celebration of the recorded word, quotes from famous Virginians are rendered through the public spaces. These range from the words of patriot Patrick Henry, to General Robert E. Lee, to social reformer and businesswoman Maggie Walker.
In moving the library from its former location in a sturdy Moderne-style building that faced the rear of Capitol Square to this place on Broad Street, the commonwealth makes a bold statement. Maybe, in an age of competition for our time and attention, the overwhelming, "Trekky" facade can be a magnet. As they say with anything that has a heart: It's what's inside that counts.
- Edwin Slipek Jr. is a Richmond-based free-lance writer who often writes about architecture and design.
HOW TO USE THE LIBRARY OF VIRGINIA
Opening Jan. 3, 1997
Location: Richmond, 800 E. Broad St. between 8th and 9th streets
Hours of operation: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday. On Saturday, only the reading rooms are open.
Phone: 1-804-692-3500 (General Information with menu selections)
Internet address: http://leo.vsla.edu/lva/lva.html
Provides more than 2 million digital images of significant and unique Virginia historical documents and photographs.
FROM YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY:
At your neighborhood public library, you can use The Library of Virginia to:
Request books from the state library and also access libraries across the country through
Inter-Library Loans
Ask for research assistance
Get genealogical research assistance
Get photocopies copies of something in the library's collection
IF YOU GO TO RICHMOND:
Directions from Roanoke:
Take Interstate 64 east to Richmond.
Take the 5th Street Exit which will take you into downtown Richmond.
Turn left on Marshall Street (soon after you exit 64)
From Marshall Street you can turn right on to 8th Street or 10th Street which will give you access to parking at the library or in a public lot.
Parking: Underground (100 spaces)
Other paid parking lots are located at 10th and Broad and 7th and Marshall
Finding Your Way Around
Public services include reading rooms, research areas, collection spaces, a conference center complex including a lecture hall, exhibition spaces and a book store.
Public spaces are organized around a dramatic central three-story lobby. Enter through plate-glass doors from the south on East Broad Street. The general reading rooms, open collections and resource areas surround the lobby and are visible when you enter the building off Broad Street.
The reading rooms are furnished with a series of custom-designed reading tables wired so you can bring your personal computer to tap the library's central computer.
In the reading rooms, translucent window shades control natural light to allow easy reading of a book or screen.
Among its new features: The Virginia authors room showcases works by selected authors born, or associated with the state.
- Compiled by Jane Evans
WHAT'S INSIDE
Treasures of the Library of Virginia
"Virginia history, generally, is the history of the nation," says board Chairman Andrew McCutcheon. "To see something in our special collections that was actually written by George Washington or Jefferson gets to you."
The most precious documents, according to the state's librarian Nolan Yelich: The gubernatorial papers from the state's first governor, Patrick Henry, and those of all his successors up to George Allen; and The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom. Inspired by George Mason, penned by Thomas Jefferson and promoted by James Madison, Virginians all, the law for the first time in western civilization promoted religious freedom.
"I was looking at the document just the other day, to make sure it got here," says Yelich, who oversaw the moving process.
Here are some other items in the Library of Virginia:
* One of 12 surviving manuscript copies of the Bill of Rights.
* Copies of all of Virginia's constitutions.
* The explorer and painter John White's map of Virginia, engraved by Theodore de Bry, and published in Thomas Hariot's history of Virginia published in 1590.
* Virginia Ordinance of Secession, adopted April 17, 1861.
* George Washington's surveys of Lord Fairfax's lands and other land as well.
* Douglas S. Freeman's research notes for his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of Washington.
* "A Map of the Most Inhabited Part of Virginia," published in 1755 and created by Peter Jefferson (Thomas' father) and Joshua Fry.
* Proceedings of the last House of Burgesses session under royal authority, May 6, 1776, marked "finis."
* Registers of free blacks.
* A document dated 1674 with the only known signature of Nathaniel Bacon, leader of Bacon's Rebellion, 1676.
* Patrick Henry's law practice ledger book.
* Equal Suffrage League papers.
* Ballots from first state election in which blacks could vote (1867).
* Census Records for Virginia and surrounding states.
* Register of Charles Parish, York County, 1648-1789, the earliest known extant parish record for Colonial Virginia.
* Sir John Harvey letter to Sir Robert Heath, May 31, 1630, oldest official archival record of Virginia in the Library's Collections.
* Gen. Charles Cornwallis acknowledgment, Oct. 28, 1781, of status as a prisoner of war.
* Civilian Conservation Corps' Virginia camp newspapers.
* Signed books from the libraries of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry.
- Compiled by Jane Evans/ Landmark News Service
LENGTH: Long : 208 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: MOTOYA NAKAMURA/Landmark News Service. 1. Libraryby CNBpatrons are greeted by a three-story entrance atrium, encircled by
reading rooms. The second-floor stacks are visible through glass
walls. 2. The entrance of the new Virginia state library is on Broad
Street, Richmond's main thoroughfare. 3. 1940s Art Deco furniture
from the old state library is stored in the new building and
probably will be reused. color.