New Libraries in Old Buildings by Petra Hauke Karen Latimer Robert Niess

Author:Petra Hauke, Karen Latimer, Robert Niess
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Published: 2021-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Conceiving a Library in a Historic Building

Immediately after the city council voted down a new building for the library, the staff made an inventory of possible alternatives. The former post office was a favourite but at the time too expensive. None of the 15 other possible locations had the space, the authenticity and the love of the citizens that the post office had. The 1924 building designed by architect J. Crouwel senior in the style of the Amsterdam School was situated in the central square in the city.

Although the location and the building were different in almost every aspect from the proposed new building near the railway station, the library in its role as client did not want to give up on its ambitions. Only if it could be demonstrated that the library of the future would fit fully into the existing building with guaranteed functionality could there be a match. Otherwise, the search for an alternative would continue. Rijnboutt in Amsterdam, the architectural practice founded by former government architect Kees Rijnboutt, was asked to carry out a design study. The architects knew the building and had already prepared plans for the owner to reuse the building for retail and hospitality. However, the design was not appropriate for a big library in the building. The total project was extended to include a café, a brasserie, a theatre, study rooms and more library functions in addition to shops.

A public library is a public building. It is not only public because of its function or because it is a destination with a recognised address in planning terms with its formal anchoring in the city but also, and most of all, when it connects with the people for whom it is intended. A building is public when it fulfils its most important goal: to be a vehicle for, and a destination of, a shared need for collectivity. That raises questions about the relationship of the building to the city. The brief to Rijnboutt architects was clear: the historic building must engage with the urban fabric of the city.

Originally the main post office had two different elevations: one with a main public entrance on the Neude square and a back elevation with a yard for logistics and business operations on the Oudegracht, the main canal. The approach was taken not only because of the building’s function as a post office, but because it also aligned with the concept of urban planning made by the famous architect Hendrik Petrus Berlage in 1917 (Singelenberg 1972). The plan focused on limiting activities along the Oudegracht and transferring them to the Lange Viestraat, the main street passing over it, and passing the post office. For Berlage, Lange Viestraat was an important traffic vein with Neude square as a public link. Contrary to this vision, the Oudegracht developed into one of the more important shopping areas in Utrecht. The back elevation of the post office with the operations in the yard became a gap in the continuity of the street and city life, a dead space amidst the shopping area.

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