Two centuries before the construction of Firestone Library, Princeton President Samuel Davies (1759-1761) described his vision of the University library's purpose in terms that effectively summarize the inspiration and intentions of the planners of Firestone:
A large and well-sorted Collection of Books on the various Branches of Literature is the most proper and valuable Fund with which [the College] can be endowed. It is one of the best Helps to enrich the Minds both of the Officers and Students with Knowledge; to give them an extensive Acquaintance with Authors; and to lead them beyond the narrow Limits of the Books to which they are confined in their stated Studies and Recitations, that they may expatiate at large thro' the boundless and variegated Fields of Science.[1]
Designing a new University library for the twentieth century was not just a matter of throwing up another building. The library has a special purpose that is central to the aims of higher education in general, and to a Princeton education in particular. To plan a facility that would serve the university community for more than the few years that earlier libraries had endured would require careful study by some of the top architects and academics in America, and the active participation of everyone who represented present and future library users. The immensity of this task perhaps justifies the quarter of a century that elapsed between the first acknowledgement of Princeton's library problems and the opening of the Harvey S. Firestone Memorial Library.
The Board of Trustees of Princeton was made aware of the need for new library facilities on the campus as early as 1920. On October 1 of that year, James Thayer Gerould, who had been the Librarian of Princeton University for just over one month, delivered a report to the Trustees describing the acute overcrowding of library buildings and suggesting a study of the problem. In response, the Trustees appointed a special committee consisting of Mr. Charles Scribner, Mr. Pitney, and Mr. Thompson to investigate. The committee hired Charles Z. Klauder as architect for the new library building or buildings.[2]
At the time, the University's main library facilities consisted of Chancellor Green and Pyne Libraries. Chancellor Green was built in 1875 "on a plan which, even at that date, was passing out of use," and quickly proved inadequate for the University's bibliographic needs.[3] Pyne Library was then added in 1897, the sesquicentennial gift of Mrs. Percy Rivington Pyne. With the addition of Pyne, the University library system achieved a capacity of 700,000 volumes. Library collections then totalled less than 200,000 volumes.[4] At the current rate of increase in acquisitions, planners estimated that it would take 200 years to fill Pyne and Chancellor Green to full capacity. Yet Princeton boasted over 740,000 volumes as early as 1935; and by the time the library's books were moved to Firestone in 1948, only fifty years after the construction of Pyne, collections totalled 1.1 million books.[5] Thus, Princeton University planners learned that projections of future library needs are not always a reliable basis on which to design a building.
The huge increase in the University's collections at the beginning of the century resulted primarily from fundamental changes in Princeton's academic curriculum which increased the demand for books. First, the preceptorial system, introduced by President Woodrow Wilson in 1905, encouraged students to engage in critical thinking rather than rote learning. Increased student-professor interaction and discussion of class material inspired Princeton men to examine the opinions of other scholars, whose works they sought to find in the University library. The more influential change, though, was the implementation of upperclass independent study with the Four Course Plan, introduced in 1923. Independent work added a whole new dimension to a Princeton education, one which required extensive research and analysis beyond the lecture rooms and textbook. James Thayer Gerould, University Librarian from 1920-1940, described the new intellectual spirit at Princeton in an undated memo:
In the new curriculum, the Princeton student is encouraged to do his own thinking, rather than to accept as final the opinions of any authority. He is given a problem and trained in the method of its investigation and solution. He is taught how to discover the sources of information, to weigh the evidence, to organize it in his own mind into an ordered opinion which he can express clearly either in preceptorial conferences or in written reports.[6]
Princeton's curriculum changes produced a substantial shift in the undergraduate demand for books. In 1900, the average Princeton student borrowed seventeen books from the University library: by 1933, that average was eighty books (Appendix A).[7] These years also witnessed an increasingly acute lack of reading and study areas within the libraries. President Dodds believed that radio was a factor in the greater demand for individual study space. The sudden ubiquity of music on the campus made finding a secluded place to read more difficult for students.[8]
Unfortunately, the University's library facilities were not expanding or developing to keep pace with her educational progress. With the rate of increase of collections far outstripping expectations, overcrowding in the Princeton libraries was a serious problem that worsened exponentially as the years wore on. "With possibly a single exception, there is no other university library in the country so inadequately housed as ours," wrote Librarian Gerould and Chairman of the Faculty Library Committee E. Baldwin Smith in 1934.[9] With shelf space at a premium, books were stored in various and often undesirable places on the campus: in the cellars and attics of Pyne and Chancellor Green; at 20 Nassau Street; in the basements of Dickinson Hall, Holder Hall, and Brown Hall; and even in the Chapel crypt (Appendix B). Many books, including some rare and valuable volumes, were damaged from being stored in damp or overheated areas. The inadequacy of Princeton's facilities for the shelving and care of rare books deterred many collectors from considering the university for their donations.[10]
Another pernicious result of the bibliographic crisis was the difficulty of attracting top-notch scholars to Princeton. Eminent professors in the humanities and social sciences were reluctant to come to a university that lacked decent facilities for their research; while the science departments, with first-rate laboratories and libraries, could recruit among the crème de la crème of the scientific world. "Future recruiting in the humanities will depend very much, in the writer's opinion, on the speed with which we can provide a university library," wrote Art and Archaeology Chairman Charles Rufus Morey.[11]
Once the Board of Trustees had acknowledged the need for new library facilities at Princeton, the first problem they faced was deciding where to place the new addition, building, or buildings. This task fell to the Trustees' Special Committee on Location of Library Building, which was appointed in 1922. Between 1920 and 1924, building architect Charles Z. Klauder developed six different plans to rebuild the Chancellor Green and Pyne Libraries. First, the committee proposed to build a stack or reading room in Pyne courtyard, but this suggestion was rejected because the Pyne courtyard was an important passageway on the campus. Next came a proposal to demolish Chancellor Green and add on to Pyne to the north, but the size of the addition would necessarily dwarf Nassau Hall on the front campus.[12]
By 1924, the Trustees realized that simply adding to the existing structures would be uneconomical and would not solve the problem for the long run. The best of the plans considered would not have been adequate for more than twenty-five years.[13] Planners began to consider a whole new structure. Several sites were considered. After Dickinson Hall in the northeast corner of the campus burned in 1920, Trustees in 1925 approved the Library Committee's recommendation to build a new library on the site.[14] The faculty disagreed, claiming that "the Halls site is so desirable that every effort should be made to see whether that site is available." They wanted the new facility to be build between McCormick and Dod, with the entrance between Whig and Clio. Whig and Clio would be moved to widen the expanse between them. The faculty also felt that the need for new library space was so urgent that construction should begin as soon as possible on a section of a new library building.[15]
In January 1927, the Trustees resolved to construct a new library on the Dickinson site, and to demolish Chancellor Green to expand Pyne to the north.[16] Supervising architect Ralph Addams Cram opposed this suggestion, however, because the Chapel would no longer be wholly visible from Nassau Street. He suggested a sizeable addition to Pyne Library to the north, to be constructed in the Gothic style, but this proposal was discarded when Klauder insisted that such an addition would have to be Colonial and the two men were unable to find a compromise.[17]
In April of 1927, the Special Committee on Library Location presented its report to the Trustees, approving the site between McCosh Hall and Palmer Laboratory and bounded by 1879 Hall and Prospect.[18] The Board promptly rescinded its previous resolution in favor of this new location. This new plan abandoned the idea of expanding the Pyne complex and determined to construct a comprehensive new library building. Klauder's proposal for this site was tentatively approved in June of 1927.[19]
The Faculty decided to concur in the approval of the McCosh location after receiving letters from Klauder and from Frank Fetter and Charles Osgood citing the difficulties inherent in the Halls site and the advantages of building along McCosh Walk.[20] Cram opposed the Halls site because a large structure there would ruin the campus' open vista to the south. Klauder felt that the space available in the center of campus was not sufficient for the new library facilities needed. Other objections to the Halls site included the cost of moving Whig and Clio, the potential overcrowding of that part of campus, and an unwillingness to alter an historic area of Princeton. The McCosh Walk location, by contrast, was praised for its centrality to classrooms and laboratories and for the large area available there for expansion.[21]
Meanwhile, Klauder had prepared two sets of plans for the consideration of the Trustees. One proposal was an extension of Pyne Hall, which Klauder did not advocate (Appendices C, D). First, it would necessitate the closing of Pyne Courtyard; and second, the architect could suggest no style for the new structure that would not clash with either Nassau Hall or Pyne itself. Furthermore, the new library would be close to and significantly larger than Nassau Hall. In a presentation to the Library Committee in May of 1928, Klauder expressed his partiality for the other plan, which envisioned the new library south of Whig and Clio (Appendix E). Though he preferred Gothic, he said, Classic style would also be acceptable for this building. Calling this site "the best place for the library on the entire campus," and an "opportunity for a splendid addition to the architecture of Princeton," he urged the Committee to approve his plans. The Committee voted to recommend Klauder's proposal for south of the Halls to the Trustees.[22]
In October 1928, the Committee changed its opinion to support the Dickinson Hall location and to advocate the razing of the John C. Green School of Science. The "providential destruction" by fire of the School of Science soon afterward cleared the site, which Fetter and Osgood had vehemently opposed as recently as January of that year, citing the noise from street traffic and the remoteness of the site from main streams of campus traffic.[23] Cram retracted his earlier objection to the site, deciding that a library there would "enhance the effect of the Chapel instead of detracting from it."[24] The Trustees then approved the Dickinson site and discharged the Special Committee on Library Building with thanks.[25]
Charles Klauder's original plans for this site envisioned a low building parallel to the Chapel, with a 150-foot tower holding the main stacks. The main entrance hall, where the public catalogs were found, was to be an enormous, awe-inspiring room, with thirty-foot ceilings and clerestory windows (same as Appendix J). On the ground floor, Klauder planned one main reading room 220 feet long by 30 feet wide; one periodical room 45 feet be 35 feet; one large browsing-room; one reserve room; and the administrative offices of the library. An exhibition hall was locateed on the second floor, along with the university's special collections and sixteen seminar rooms. The third and fourth floors were to be devoted to seminar rooms and faculty offices. A 21-floor tower contained the main book-stack, which was surrounded by student carrels on each floor. Klauder's plans were approved "in principle" by the Board of Trustees.[26]
Morey's inspiration for the laboratory-laboratory came from his experience in the Department of Art and Archaeology. As chairman, he saw substantial improvement in the spirit and work of the department when it moved into its own building, McCormick Hall, in 1922. Ten years later, he wrote that he could "well remember the sudden stimulus which the work in Art and Archaeology experienced by the mere possession of a building, providing a common laboratory of staff offices, undergraduate reading rooms, and a study room for graduate students, around the indispensable focus of the Marquand Library."[28] The scientific departments had also benefitted from the centralization of libraries, laboratories, and faculty offices. Morey felt that Klauder's plans ignored this "departmental sense of solidarity, a corporate feeling of mutual support and interdependence" on the campus.[29]
Morey decided that every department at Princeton should have the opportunity for constant intradepartmental interaction that the opening of McCormick had afforded Art and Archaeology. Yet he did not feel that the social science and humanities departments should each have their own buildings, since this would destroy all unity of the University library and preclude any interdepartmental exchanges, in addition to taking up a lot of room on the campus. Within one "humanistic library," he hoped to satisfy the intellectual and physical needs of each department that did not yet have its own building. He saw the laboratory-library as the necessary third step in the development of Princeton's unique method of education, after the preceptorial and independent study.
"Laboratory" and "workshop" would seem to be strange terms to apply to a library dedicated to humanities and social sciences. Yet Morey undoubtedly had reasons for choosing to describe his proposal in scientific lingo, for characterizing the library as a laboratory where students work with books rather than with apparatus. Perhaps he intended to draw a parallel between the success and distinction that the scientific departments at Princeton had achieved and his hopes for the other disciplines. The 1930s and 1940s were a period when great gains had been realized in science and technology-related fields. By offering to the humanities and social sciences the resources and opportunities that the natural sciences had long enjoyed at Princeton, Morey was attempting to spur similar progress. He may also have been trying to lend some credibility and respect to humanities and social sciences, where progress was not so evident as in biology or engineering, by using words that alluded to the "hard" sciences.
Professor Morey's plan was not immediately or unanimously approved. It was strange and new enough to spur vigorous debate among all interested parties. After Morey wrote an article for the Princeton Alumni Weekly describing his proposal, Librarian James Thayer Gerould countered with his own article in praise of Klauder's plan: "The building as a whole is very conveniently arranged, will be economical in operation, and will be readily adaptable to changes in methods of instruction and in the organization of the departmental work."[30] The Trustees then appointed a faculty committee to conduct a re-study of the library. The principle of Morey's plan was adopted by the Faculty in October 1933, and by the Board of Trustees in January 1934. After approving the idea of a "laboratory-library," the Trustees asked architects Walter H. Kilham Jr. and Ides van der Gracht '23 to begin new sketches. Among other refinements, the huge tower disappeared from the building.[31]
While Klauder's earlier drawings had the main book stack in a 150-foot, 21-story tower, his 1934 plan has the main stacks on the main floors and only rare books in the tower. He moved the browsing room from the first floor to a larger area on the second and third floors (Appendices M, N). While his original plans showed student carrels surrounding the stack in the tower floors, the 1934 proposal places all carrels on the third and fourth floors (Appendix N). Faculty offices, which had previously been concentrated on the third and fourth floors, were spread out over all five floors of the 1934 drawings.
The major concession to Morey evident in Klauder's 1934 "Proposed Humanistic Library" can be found in a column in his vertical plan called "reading departments" (Appendix K). Klauder assigned one or two departments--history, politics, etc.--to each floor, ostensibly to correspond to the faculty offices, the student carrels, and the books in the stack. In his earlier plans, Klauder had already included entrances to the book stacks from every floor, so that the shelved books most in demand by each department be located near its seminar and study rooms.
In his 1932 proposal, Morey specifically criticizes Klauder's strict arrangement of faculty offices and student cubicles. Professors and students were given rows of tight cells along the stacks, "with no departmental grouping save what is supplied by the stacks themselves."[33] This regimentation was not changed in Klauder's 1934 drawings.
Robert B. O'Connor was a Princeton man, having earned his Master of Fine Arts degree at the School of Architecture in 1920, after his graduation from Trinity College. He also served in World War I. O'Connor's architectural career began with the New York office of his father-in-law, Benjamin Wistar Morris.[36] He became a partner in Morris & O'Connor in 1930.[37]
Benjamin Morris had been the architect for 1879 Hall and Patton Hall on the Princeton campus. He was officially a consultant on the Firestone project, but Professor Robert Clark has found some evidence that Morris himself may have been the architect-designate of the new University library at one point.[38] Nor does Morris' architectural experience preclude this possibility: he had worked on plans for several other libraries, including the New York Public Library and the Williams Memorial Library at Trinity College. However, Morris' death in 1944 may have limited his involvement in the Firestone project.[39]
In 1943, O'Connor established a new firm with Walter H. Kilham, Jr. in New York. This partnership was to endure until 1959. O'Connor was a fellow of the American Institute of Architects, past president of its New York Chapter, and the recipient of its Medal of Honor for 1947.[40] At Princeton, he was a member of the Advisory Council of the School of Architecture and the School's representative on the Graduate Council. In 1949, after the triumphant opening of the Firestone Library, he was named supervising architect of the University.[41]
Walter Kilham was educated at Harvard, where he received his Master of Architecture degree from the School of Architecture in 1928. Before the founding of O'Connor and Kilham, he was a partner in the firm of van der Gracht and Kilham. Through his association with Ides van der Gracht, who had worked with Klauder, Kilham was familiar with Princeton's library project as early as 1939.[42] After receiving the commission from Princeton's Trustees, he spent three years visiting and studying important libraries in the United States and in Europe.[43] O'Connor and Kilham designed a number of other libraries in their careers, including the Carroll College Library, the annex of the Morgan Library, and studios for the New York Public Library. They were also the architects of a major addition to the Metropolitan Museum in the late 1940s and early 1950s.[44]
The interior of the library was to be completely functional, rather than decorative--and modern, in contrast to its external appearance. Documents and memos from this period allude to "Plan H," the implementation of the humanistic laboratory library. "The fundamental characteristic of the humanistic laboratory library is that of bringing the teacher, the research scholar, the student and the books into a close and invigorating relationship," reads one memo from about 1944:
It envisages for all of the disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences a departmental aggregate of carrels, offices, seminars, conference rooms, work rooms, and lounges focused, so far as possible, around the books needed in the research and teaching carried on by each of the departments.[46]
Plan H called for an underground book stack (with four stack levels below ground, rather than the three that were ultimately built), and three more floors above ground for reading rooms, administration, and departmental space. These documents also include the first references in the context of Firestone to modular design, by which the entire library would be constructed of uniform units of space that were equally lighted, heated, and ventilated, to allow for maximum flexibility of use. Each modular bay was to have its own unit of heat, light, and ventilation, to allow for easy subdivision. Plan H also specified that removable partitions should be used for the above-ground areas, and that all student carrels would be located in the underground stack.
The final blueprints for Firestone were designed with the foremost intention of encouraging the use of books. For this purpose, the architects and planners decided on a policy of open stacks, which was (and still is) exceedingly rare for a library of this size. Comfortable reading places were provided throughout the library, in lieu of the mass reading rooms the Klauder had drawn. In every aspect of Firestone's design the architects strove to avoid the awe-inspiring and to emphasize comfort and informality. Where Klauder had hoped to impress and perhaps overwhelm library patrons, O'Connor and Kilham endeavored to put students at ease and to help them develop a love of books.
The main floor of the library was designed to house the circulation desk, the Reference Reading Room, the Reserve Book Room, the Exhibition Gallery, the Manuscript and Treasure Rooms, and most administrative offices (Appendices P, R).[47] The second floor would hold all the special collections, including the Gest Oriental Library (Appendix R). The Departments of Classics, Oriental Languages, Philosophy, and Religion, with all the corresponding offices, seminar rooms, and books, would be on the third floor, along with a large faculty lounge. The perimeter of the underground floors A-C would be lined with offices, seminars, and study rooms. Economics, Politics, and History were to be on A Floor; English and Modern Languages on B; while C would be devoted mostly to book stacks and carrels, but would also include soundproof offices and rooms for the Department of Music (Appendices Q, R, S). The interior of the underground floors would hold the main book stacks.[48]
One of the greatest challenges in planning the new library was reconciling the need for a modern, functional interior with the desire for an exterior that would fit in well on the campus. To solve this problem, the architects designed the entire inside before considering the outside and also used different styles for the interior and exterior.[49]
The size of the library was a crucial factor in its planning. The Trustees and the supervising architect wished to avoid competing with the chapel, which was seen as the spiritual center of Princeton and one of its dominant architectural features. Yet the library building had to be large enough not only to accommodate the present collections, which were not insignificant, but to allow for major expansion in the future. Thus, O'Connor and Kilham were faced with the formidable problem of designing a structure that would be large in actuality but small in external appearance. They succeeded: only in an aerial view can one really see the enormous volume contained by the Firestone building. This effect was achieved by placing the bulk of the library underground, by building on a slope, and by staggering the south exterior wall so that the full breadth of the building cannot be seen from the front. They decided to make the south facade the permanent front and the north the site for future expansion, which is why the south facade received the greatest amount of detail.[50]
In contrast to the thoroughly modern interior, the library's exterior is the Gothic style. Firestone is one of the earliest examples of Gothic with a steel frame.[51] The architects decided on Gothic for the purposes of architectural harmony on the campus, especially because of the new building's proximity to the University Chapel, the old Pyne and Chancellor Green Libraries, and Green Hall. Planners briefly considered Colonial style instead of Gothic, but Colonial would have formed a sharp contrast with the Gothic surroundings; and to the architects it presented extremely difficult problems of design in meeting the functional requirements of the internal plan.[52] In addition, an anonymous friend of the library made a sizable donation to the library fund, with the stipulation that the building be Gothic. There has been some speculation that the anonymous donor was actually Dean Mathey, who actually preferred Colonial Revival normally, but felt strongly that the Library should be Gothic.[53]
Firestone is not a stellar example of collegiate Gothic in America. "Barely passable Gothic" is how Professor Clark has referred to the building's appearance; but to the architects and planners, the exterior was unimportant. The spirit of the humanistic library lies in its stacks, reading nooks, carrels, and offices, not in massive towers or stone gargoyles. Firestone proved to be the last gasp of Gothic architecture at Princeton. Following its completion, the University decided that Gothic construction was no longer practical.[54]
The principal factor that distinguishes Firestone from other large university libraries of the early twentieth century is that it was designed as a working library. Most libraries constructed before 1950 are large, magnificent buildings designed to impress and overwhelm, with a large warehouse for books, closed to most students, and a single, cavernous reading room.[55] To the modern Princeton student, they resemble storehouses rather than libraries. As President Dodds said, "libraries today are somewhat forbidding. They are designed primarily to house vast stacks of books and to control their withdrawal. Such a library with a strong institutional flavor will fail to infuse students with a love of books and the habit of browsing among them."[56]
Princeton University, on the other hand, designed its library to serve the students' interests and needs. Its function was to bring books and readers together, serving as a scholar's workshop.[57] Following Professor Morey's plan, the architects took the wholly original step of designing departmental areas within the library itself. Those departments without their own buildings were to have the studies of faculty members, seminar and conference rooms, and undergraduate carrels close around books in their particular field. To encourage familiarity with the books, the architects included not just one reading room but comfortable, well-lighted areas throughout the library.
Possibly the most unusual feature of the new library was its policy of open stacks. Open stacks are exceedingly rare in a library this size. When Firestone was built, Librarian Julian Boyd wrote that it was the largest open-stack library in existence.[58] Open stacks were crucial to the library's purpose, however, since they provide students immediate contact with books and other materials. Boyd felt that "the outstanding character of the new library building is its openness, its ease of access to books and to library services."[59]
Firestone was also unique in its flexibility. From past experience with libraries that quickly became obsolete, the planners knew they had to foresee the unforeseeable, so that the library could be easily changed when the university's bibliographic and departmental needs changed. First, it allowed for future expansion. Firestone was built with an immediate capacity of 1.8 million volumes, but with the potential to expand that capacity to 4 million.[60] The site was chosen in part because it was large enough to permit such expansion; the original plan left room on the site to double the library's area.[61]
Internal flexibility was provided by the modular plan, which, as mentioned earlier, provided for identical units of space throughout the library. These uniform areas were interchangeable as to function, so that the interior of the library could be rebuilt over the years to adapt to new conditions and needs. Each unit could be stacks, or could be combined with others to form seminar rooms, conference rooms, or offices. To determine the optimum design for size and function, the architects constructed four full-size modular units with which to experiment before construction was complete.[62] They decided that each unit should be 18 feet by 25 feet.[63]
Few libraries had been designed as economically as Firestone was. Economy, in fact, was consistent with the planners' intentions to build a user-friendly library. Ornamentation and wasted space were avoided, in contrast to Klauder's huge Gothic rooms and expensive details. Firestone's interior was designed not to be imposing or institutionalized, but comfortable and functional.
Firestone contained an unusually large number of study carrels--494--as a special accommodation for Princeton's plan of study. Upperclass students engaged in independent study greatly appreciated having their own private "research offices."[64] Finally, Princeton's new library was unique in the modernity of its conditioning. The best new approaches for lighting, temperature control, and ventilation were implemented to make Firestone as pleasant as possible for the students and to provide adequate housing conditions for rare books. The facilities also allowed for later improvements. Though most of Firestone was not built with air-conditioning originally, planners made sure that the ventilation ducts throughout the building could be easily adapted to provide air-conditioning later.[65]
The originality of Firestone Library was evident to architects and librarians worldwide at the time of its construction. In 1944, Librarian Boyd convened a meeting of representatives from twelve other large universities that were also planning to construct new library buildings. This group became the core of the Cooperative Committee on Library Buildings, an organization that led a revolution in college and university library architecture and influenced library construction around the world.[66]
The final plans for Firestone become even more interesting when one reads the book College Architecture in America and its Part in the Development of the Campus. It was written in 1929 by previous architect Charles Klauder and Herbert Wise, and is dedicated primarily to explaining how a college library should be designed. O'Connor and Kilham appear to have adopted many of the ideas set down here by the former library building czar.
First, College Architecture stresses the importance of flexibility. The authors write that "The library must be sensitive to the expansion of any teaching unit of the institution," a specification that O'Connor and Kilham meet through the use of the modular plan. Plans should also provide for future growth and development, according to Klauder and Wise. The degree to which Firestone's architects allowed for future additions and changes has been explored in earlier sections. In Klauder's book, one finds the suggestion that the interior arrangement of a college library should be planned before exterior is considered. The ultimate planners of Firestone were lauded for their originality and practicality for their application of this idea.[67]
That Klauder's advice on the proper location for a library was heeded for Firestone should not be surprising, when one considers that Klauder was still the building architect when the site was chosen. In College Architecture, he writes that the site must be accessible from all buildings, though it should not necessarily be a central focus of the campus plan because it must have a front and rear. "A sloping site is useful," he claims, to allow for several stack levels and underground rooms. [68]
The most striking way in which Klauder and Wise's book differs from the final plan for Firestone is that the two architects feel that open stacks are undesirable and impossible in a large library such as Princeton's.
The chief and essential difference between a College library and a University library is that the former should be designated first of all to permit direct access to its books on the part of the entire student body and faculty, whereas it is impossible to design a University library to house nearly a million volumes and at the same time have them accessible to a resident population of 10,000.[69]
O'Connor and Kilham wisely rejected this argument. Today, the Firestone building houses approximately 3.5 million volumes and serves a community of approximately 10,000. The entire library system of Princeton contains more than five million printed works, five million manuscripts, and two million nonprint items.[70]
Estimates for the library's cost increased over time. As late as 1944, the planners were "pledged to build a library for $3,500,000."[72] When construction began, the projected cost was $5 million.[73] Ultimately, the Firestone Library cost more than $6 million to build.[74] Post-war inflation may account for much of the increase.
The library was financed by gifts from 1,250 groups and individuals, who donated a total of $6,175,000.[75] The largest single gift was a $1 million donation from the Firestone family. This money was especially important because it came at a pivotal moment in the library's planning, and helped ensure the project's survival. Before construction was complete, the family had given an additional $228,000.[76] Harvey S. Firestone, Senior had five sons, all of whom attended Princeton: Harvey Jr. '20, Russell '24, Leonard '31, Raymond '33, and Roger '35 (Appendix T).[77]
The original timetable, which had called for a completion date of July 1, 1947, was soon revised for a number of reasons. First, the government had placed restrictions on the purchase and allotment of materials, steel and cable particularly. The planners also had to contend with several strikes, and shut-downs of some sub-contractor plants.[80]
Yet the pressure to construct the building quickly was strong. The need for more book space had by the 1940s reached crisis level. Current library conditions were intolerable. In addition, rising prices after the war meant that construction was becoming more expensive by the day. To expedite the building process, the Trustees ordered the start of construction before the working drawings were completed. The Library fund had not even raised enough money to cover the projected construction costs when ground was broken. The Trustees realized that projects that were ready to begin construction as soon as the war ended would have a great advantage in obtaining materials, and once the basic plan for the building was approved, they decided to forge ahead.[81]
The site that had been chosen for Firestone had been partially cleared by Mother Nature, when Dickinson Hall burned in 1920 and the School of Science in 1928. Turner Construction finished the job by razing the Class of 1877 Laboratory and the Brackett Dynamo Laboratory, and by moving the Joseph Henry House, the residence of the Dean of the College.[82]
The excavation for the underground floors of Firestone was difficult. The contracters had to be careful while blasting, for fear that the explosions would damage the Chapel's stained-glass windows. The material that was removed from the site was brought to the southern end of campus to form Pardee Field.[83] Dirt was not the most valuable discovery of the excavation, however. In the spring of 1946, a group of Princeton geologists found fossils from fish of the late Triassic Age in a section of shale. The fossils, which had been buried there for 175 million years, were amazingly well-preserved and revealed new details about the prehistoric fish. Nor were only geologists excited by the find: "Fossil hunting became a lunch-time pastime of the workmen on the job, and one of the best specimens was uncovered by a truck driver."[84] This site proved one of the richest grounds for finding Triassic fish fossils in the world.[85]
After the dirt was removed and the fossils sent to museums, construction could begin. The three bottom floors of the building were constructed of reinforced concrete, while structural steel (1,300 tons of it) with two-inch concrete fireproofing was used for the framework of the three upper floors.[86] For the exterior, the planners chose Foxcroft stone from Broomall, Pennsylvania. Foxcroft stone was sound, workable, and of a color that went well with other buildings in the vicinity. Equally important, the stone was available in very large sizes, which allowed Firestone to have larger windows than are usually possible in Gothic architecture.[87] When built, Firestone boasted 310,480 square feet of floor area, 3.87 million cubic feet of total mass, and over 4 1/2 acres of stacks.[88]
Moving the books was a formidable project. The library had not been completed when Operation Firestone began, and many book shelves were still under construction. The rare books to be transported required special care. The committee assigned to oversee book-moving had ordered specially-made carts, but these were not ready in time. The books had to be tied onto makeshift carts with ropes. Finally, the moving process was complicated by the great number of places on campus where books had been stored.
Operation Firestone was a great success. After crews worked full time all summer and four hours a day during the school year, the job was finally completed on December 15, 1948. It took just over five months to move over one million books.
In 1988, more space was added to B and C Floors. The expansion, which was designed by the Boston firm Koetter, Kim and Associates, added 50,000 square feet and 30 carrels to the library, and admitted natural light to the lower floors. "They've just completely humanized Firestone," said one student of the new addition.[92]
In the years to come, the library needs of the Princeton community will necessarily change in ways unimaginable to University residents today. Thanks to the foresight and expert planning of the Trustees, the supervising and building architects, and the myriad others involved in the library project, Firestone Library will be able to adapt to these new conditions with ease. At last, the university will have a library facility as consistent and permanent as its library's stated mission: to further the advancement of learning at Princeton University.[93]
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