The Harold Washington Library

The Harold Washington Library was constructed in 1991, the winning design of Thomas Beeby. After being stored in temporary warehouses for twelve years, the city of Chicago finally decided to create a permanent home for the 4,700,000 items belonging to the public library. A design competition was held with the hope that hundreds of submissions would produce a new building that was not only pleasing to the eye and cost efficient, but also one that would end the embarrassment of not having a library building. In the end, only six designs were submitted, most likely as a result of the impractical set of rules surrounding the competition. Some of the other entries included designs by Dirk Lohan, Arthur Erikson, and Helmut Jahn, whose design actually jumped across the el tracks.

In the end, Beeby's design was chosen over the other five entries. Beeby's proposal focused primarily on avoiding anything Mies; that is, people were tired of the numerous knockoffs of Mies's steel and glass towers, so rather than creating a new style of architecture anything unlike Mies seemed to be acceptable. The exterior of the building is nothing more than a curtain wall of granite and brick. Rather than being true to the building's skeletal structure, Beeby chose to cover the faÐ"§ade with granite blocks at the base and brick on the rest of the building. The choice of materials was actually chosen for its durability and low maintenance, however unnecessary they might be. The building seems to have been designed on a gargantuan scale, feeling imposing rather than impressive upon approaching it. The massive five-story, arched windows were meant to reflect Roman architecture, a reference that gets lost in the mix of many architectural styles referenced by the building.

A definite example of Eclectic architecture, the Harold Washington Library attempts to combine Roman inspired elements with the glass and steel structure topping the building. Reminiscent of the years following the Industrial Revolution, when glass and

steel was just beginning to be exploited for architectural purposes, the Winter Garden seems out of place compared to the rest of the building's faÐ"§ade. Even more confusing are the obtrusive, enormous owls resting on the four corners of the building. When designed by Beeby, the owls were used for their symbolism of wisdom and learning. However, they end up feeling like giant gargoyles perched to attack or simply intimidate passers-by. Other ornamentation on the building's exterior includes wall medallions containing ears of corn and the head of Ceres, both references to Chicago's Midwest farming roots.

The owls and wall medallions serve as some indication of what is contained inside the building, something that would otherwise be hard to distinguish by simply looking at the building's generically Eclectic faÐ"§ade. Overall, I find the exterior of the building to be quite confusing as a result of the mixing of architectural styles. Also, as far as integrity is concerned, the building doesn't reflect what is underneath the layers brick and granite in any way. I would say that it had been designed with the idea of form before function in mind. The library has an endo-skeleton since the structure of the building is behind the curtain walls of brick and granite. In my opinion, the one successful reveal of what is happening inside can be found in the five-story tall windows running along the walls of the building. The windows reach from the third floor up, uniting those floors