May 12, 2008
Dome Sweet Dome
Wow, underground buildings are the new above-ground buildings, apparently. First the Children's Museum revealed its dugout plans, and now the University of Chicago has yet more plans to keep its students sun-shunning mole trolls. We kid, we kid.
Architect Helmut Jahn designed the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library to be mostly underground with a crystal dome on top. The building will hold 3.5 million "volumes of print material" which will be stored "in a high-density, automated shelving system." Robo-library!
Architecture critic Blair Kamin worries that the look of the building clashes with the rest of U of C's campus.
The real trouble is the way the library departs from the university’s characteristic planning, which consists of walled-in courtyards: places of extraordinary dignity and repose. Regenstein broke that pattern in 1970 with its concrete Brutalism. Now the library’s Jetson futurism appears poised to repeat the same mistake.
Calmate, Blair. If you can't get psyched about a robotic book-fetching system housed in a glorious glass bubble, what can you get behind? We dig it. [U of C's press release, Trib]
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What happens when there's a flood?!
This will be a great addition to the campus. As for the modern vs. traditional debate, a boring "modern" building on campus would not be good. Boring "modern" boxes--whether glass or concrete--are not even modern. They have been around for sixty years
But this is not a boring box. This dome looks great, even alongside the gothic buildings at U of C.
that i.m pei pyramid in front of the louvre was met with similar concern, but it eventually became a symbol of paris.
UIUC's library is underground AND has a walled in courtyard.
If the library extension has to fit in with the surrounding buildings, then I pity the architect that can accomplish that.
All of the Neo-Gothic architecture that our university is famous for exists for the most part within a contained block of the quads south of this proposed structure. Once you go north of 57th street, it's anyone's game, architecturally. So what exactly "surrounds" this dome? It sure as hell isn't "walled-in courtyards: places of extraordinary dignity and repose". It's the Reg to one side, tennis courts to the other (although I guess they have to get rid of those to build the dome), Max P north of that, and to the west it's the Fermi Institute and the science buildings. The closest "dignified" Neo-Gothic structure is Snell-Hitchcock across the street. At any rate, it's hardly disrupting a contiguous architectural theme. It's just another random building amongst the previously-existing random mass of buildings off of the main quad.
And honestly? I'd much rather have this shiny dome than keep the rundown, rarely (if ever) used tennis courts that are there now. Some of us at the U of C like sunlight, and we don't get nearly enough in our stuffy traditionalist architecture. I welcome this dome. Maybe I'll actually go to the library to study.
Here's my only problem. . .when I went to the library as a student, I went there to study in QUIET. When you live with people, have classes with people, etc. . the only place to retreat to to hideout and study, was on an upper floor in the library at my University (as the main library floor ecoed and had a TON of noise - which will be the case on this floor too).
The building looks great, but the library should also facilitate a place for many students to study in quiet. . which this plan does not do.
Chicago State University already has a robo library.
I wonder about the costs of cooling this book greenhouse in the summer. It does look pretty "cool" but may not end up that way.
Interestingly, during my college years I found the best reading/studying occurred in the basement of the school's library, away from natural light and distractions.
@tothecurb
UIUC's Undergraduate Library was commonly referred to as the "UGLy" in my day.
I was always told that the UGL was built underground so it wouldn't block the sun from the adjacent Morrow Plots. But, as always, wikipedia has the answer:
[from wikipedia]
Repose? The cubicles in the dark reaches of the upper floors of the Reg, now that's repose. This looks like a pleasant enough place to read, especially during weather events, if you like pleasant places to read.
oh whet, you know that we don't actually like pleasant places to read! the danker, the better. it gives us cred. speaking of which, i totally got a mailing from u of c today asking for money that was based entirely on "oh my god, didn't you just LOVE scav hunt?! give us money! because you're a nerd who loved scav hunt! without your money, super-nerds cannot marry each other and build nuclear reactors all in the name of winning a ridiculous game!" i'm totally for the dome. i just think we need to find a way to make it somehow nerdier. it looks awfully bright. can we claim to be somehow more radio-active by working there? can we claim some mathematical relation to god based on some divine parabola? give me something, u of c.