Product Description

One natural outcome of the educational reform movement of the 1840s was the growth of the American public library. Though the first public libraries were housed in post offices and town halls, even in local drug stores, growing book collections soon forced cities and towns to recognize the need for larger, more appropriate buildings. Some 450 public libraries were built in the latter half of the nineteenth century. The most important and influential architect of the era who built librairies was Henry Hobson Richardson (1838-1886), perhaps best known for his design of Boston's Trinity Church. The primary focus of Kenneth Breisch's Henry Hobson Richardson and the Small Public Library in America is on Richardson's designs for public libraries in Woburn, North Easton, Quincy, and Malden, Massachusetts, as well as an unbuilt proposal for the Hoyt Library in East Saginaw, Michigan. In addition to placing them within the broader history of American library design, Breisch offers a close examination of these buildings as participants in the cultural, political, and economic developments of the period. Since more than 80 percent of the public libraries built in the latter half of the nineteenth century were privately endowed--as were all of Richardson's library commissions--his discussion of the role of philanthropy, in particular, illuminates the perceived meaning and function of public libraries to the monied classes, as well as their function as memorials to deceased family members. Breisch also examines the role played by the library profession in the development of modern library planning theory during this period, a role that often clashed with the goals of the architects commissioned to design the library buildings. Although this conflict eventually led the American Library Association to condemn Richardson's buildings as unsuitable for library work, his designs still had enormous influence on the architectural vocabulary of the institution. The fact remains that Richardson invented and refined a significant prototype for the smaller American public library building.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2978378 in Books
• Published on: 1997-04-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

From Library Journal
Here is yet another book on the great American architect Henry Hobson Richardson, America's most important architect between Thomas Jefferson and Frank Lloyd Wright and, like these other giants of American culture, known throughout the Western world. Specifically, the author deals with the small public library designs, one of the more successful building types that Richardson entrepreneured in the course of his short but successful career between 1868 and 1886. In this sober, uncontroversial account of Richardson's five public library designs, Breisch (architectural history, Southern California Inst. of Architecture) covers the circumstances that occasioned the buildings and the historical background that led up to them. While this may be of special interest to some librarians, it is a necessary purchase only for larger historical architecture collections.?Peter S. Kaufman, Boston Architectural Ctr.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Today, the very function of the public library is changing, responding to the challenges of technology and the rise of the mega-bookstore. Hence, it is a treat to return to the roots and read an excellent and informative treatise on the origins of the public library building and the design work of one of America's foremost architects: Henry Hobson Richardson... This book is a wonderfully informative and scholarly work accompanied by excellent photographs and illustrations." -- A. Anthony Tappé, AIA, ArchitectureBoston, Issue #1, 1998

"One of the most substantive new interpretations of Richardson's work to appear in years."
— American Studies International

"The suburban libraries of H. H. Richardson, like the country banks of Louis Sullivan, are small gems in the crown of American architecture. They represent the mid-nineteenth-century flowering of popular literacy and middle-class philanthropy. In this richly-textured monograph Kenneth Breisch details the evolution of this building type in Richardson's work and those of his contemporaries. This is a sophisticated addition to the history of architecture."
—James F. O'Gorman, Grace Slack McNeil Professor of the History of American Art, Wellesley College

About the Author
Kenneth A. Breisch is Professor in the Department of History and Theory at the Southern California Institute of Architecture.