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COLUMBIA LIBRARY COLUMNS - Autumn,
1996
South Hall Rising: A Photo
Essayby Michael Stoller
Unlike a Mies Van Der Rohe skyscraper or even a Gothic
cathedral, Butler Library does not easily reveal its structure.
The building's modern heart lies hidden behind brick,
limestone, marble, and the eclectic desire to make Butler look
like the Renaissance palace it isn't. Even in the book stack
itself, which employs solid floors in place of the glass blocks
and catwalks common in libraries only a few years older, the
actual modern structure of the building is largely concealed from
the everyday visitor. But the following photographs, products of
the architects' desire to chronicle South Hall's
construction on a month-by-month basis, reveal the steel skeleton
that allows a Renaissance palace to support the weight of two
million books in its core.
The wonder of seeing South Hall rise is also to observe the
extraordinary magic with which the building's modern heart
was concealed. To stand inside the lobby today, looking at the
giant piers that seem to support the dome overhead, hiding the
steel that does the real work, is to experience a kind of trompe
l'oeil that architecture of the late twentieth century rarely
attempts. Whether or not one's tastes run in this direction,
there is no denying that South Hall was the last building at
Columbia to employ such methods. It would be twenty years before
another large building arose on the Morningside Heights campus,
and even admirers of the International Style must wonder if
structures like Carman, Mudd, and East Campus represented a
change for the better. |
Click here to start the photo essay.
Note: All photographs are from the
Columbiana Collection, Columbia University.
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