Sterling Memorial Library

Sterling Memorial Library

Facade and tower of Sterling Memorial Library at middle distance, from Yale University's Cross Campus.

Facade and tower of Sterling Memorial Library
General information
Type Library
Architectural style Collegiate Gothic
Address 120 High Street
Town or city New Haven, Connecticut
Country USA
Completed 1930[1]
Opening April 1931[1]
Cost $8,000,000[1]
Owner Yale University
Height 150 feet (46 m)
Technical details
Floor count 16
Floor area 441,651 square feet (41,030.7 m2)
Design and construction
Architect James Gamble Rogers
Website
web.library.yale.edu/building/sterling-library

Sterling Memorial Library is the main library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Gothic Revival campus. It is elaborately ornamented, featuring extensive sculpture and painting as well as hundreds of panes of stained glass created by G. Owen Bonawit. In addition to five large reading rooms, a Music Library, and courtyard on the ground floor, the library's tower has sixteen levels of bookstacks containing over 4 million volumes. It connects via tunnel to the underground Bass Library, which contains an additional 150,000 volumes.

History

John W. Sterling, the library's namesake

For the ninety years prior to the construction of Sterling Memorial Library, Yale's library collections had been held in the College Library, a chapel-like Gothic Revival building on Yale's Old Campus now known as Dwight Hall.[2] Built to house a collection of 40,000 books in the 1840s, and later expanded to Linsly Hall and Chittenden Hall, the old library could not hold Yale's swelling book collection, which had grown to over one million volumes.[1] In 1918, Yale received a $17-million bequest from John W. Sterling, founder of the New York law firm Shearman & Sterling, providing that Yale construct "at least one enduring, useful and architecturally beautiful edifice."[1][3] The largest bequest in the history of any American university, it initiated a major period of construction on Yale's central campus.[3] Because of the library collection's growth, the university decided to make the centerpiece of Sterling's gift a new library with a capacity for 3.5 million volumes.[3][4]

The building's original architect, Bertram Goodhue, intended the library to resemble his State Capitol Building in Lincoln, Nebraska, with the library's books in a prominent tower.[5] When Goodhue died in 1924, the project passed to James Gamble Rogers, the university's consulting architect. Originally, Rogers planned to balance the library with a 5,000-seat chapel on the opposite end of Cross Campus' main axis, but the absence of a financier and the end of compulsory undergraduate chapel services in 1926 scuttled the project.[6] Instead, Rogers circumscribed Goodhue's tower plan with an "ecclesiastical metaphor": a cathedral plan, in Roger's words, "as near to modern Gothic as we dared to make it."[7] He modeled the library's entrance hall to resemble a vaulted nave and commissioned extensive stained glass and stone ornament to decorate the building's interior.[8]

The library's 122,500-square-foot (11,380 m2) footprint would take up more than half a city block, and twenty buildings were cleared for its construction, many of them private homes.[9] Although excavation began in the fall of 1927, the construction site was not fully secured until July 1928, when a holdout homeowner finally decamped.[10][11][12]

While the new library was planned and constructed, the university began soliciting gifts from its alumni for the new library. By 1931, the collection had grown to nearly 2 million volumes, many of them rare books and manuscripts.[1][10] Among the most important of these acquisitions was a Gutenberg Bible donated by Anna Harkness.[10] This became the centerpiece of the new library's Rare Book Room, which allowed students and researchers to browse the most valuable books in the university's collection for the first time, a function later subsumed in part by the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library.[1]

Like much of Yale's revivalist construction of the same era, the new library was criticized as expensive and retrograde.[6][13] William Harlan Hale, writing in The Nation, scorned it as a "cathedral orgy," criticized the library's bastardized cathedral aesthetics and the university's timid anti-modernism.[14] Many students of architecture leveled similar criticisms.[15] Others responded to the building's fusion of academic purpose and ecclesiastical architecture, asserting that the project was either sanctimonious or sacrilegious.[6] More recent reviews have praised the building's ambition, beauty, and pragmatism.[13][16][17]

Building

The library is situated on Yale's Cross Campus, the central quadrangle of the university. Surrounding buildings, including Berkeley College, Trumbull College, and Sterling Law Building were designed by Rogers and built in the same period and Gothic Revival style as the library.

Nave

The library's nave

The entrance hall of the library is known as the "nave" because its plan imitates the main approach of a cathedral. At its western terminus is a chancel containing an ornate circulation desk and altarpiece mural painted by Eugene Savage.[11] Constructed of Indiana limestone and Ohio sandstone blocks, the nave is a self-supporting stone structure with none of the steel reinforcement used elsewhere in the library.[18] it is elaborately decorated with stone and wood carving, ironwork, stained glass windows, and ceiling bosses.[19] The main hall is flanked by two aisles, which originally held card catalogs for the library bookstacks. Though the original catalog drawers remain in the aisles, the cards have been removed and the aisles converted to seating areas and a computer lab. At its western end it is intersected by a transept, which leads to the library's main reading room on one end and its wing on the other. For many years, smoking was allowed in the nave, which left a layer of soot on its upper levels.[20] Beginning in 2013, the nave underwent a $20-million, yearlong renovation to clean its surfaces, restore its architectural details, overhaul building systems, and reconfigure visitor circulation and services.[21][22][23]


Tower

Fifteen levels of library materials, primarily books, are housed in the building's tower, commonly referred to as the "Stacks."[8] Originally intended to house 3.5 million volumes, it is a seven-story structure, with eight mezzanine levels interleaved between the main stories.[24] Although encased in a Gothic exterior, the tower's structural system is a welded steel frame, which permits a vertical rise that traditional Gothic techniques would not.[11] The crennalated roof of the tower is elaborately decorated, complete with a castle-like housing for air handling equipment.[25]

Placed end-to-end, the full length of the tower's shelves is estimated at 80 miles (130 km), contained within 6.5 miles (10.5 km) of aisles.[26] In addition to the library collections, the tower houses reading rooms, study carrels, library offices, and special collections, including the Babylonian Collection.[24] Access to the Stacks is restricted to affiliates of the university and library patrons.

Reading rooms

Starr Reading Room

Four reading rooms are situated near the nave on the first floor of the library:

Smaller reading rooms are housed in the tower and are accessible to library affiliates. These include reading rooms for the library's area studies holdings, including African, East Asian, Latin American, Near East, Slavic and East European, Southeast Asian, and Judaica collections. There are also dedicated reading rooms for several fields of study, including American Studies, History, and Philosophy.

Wing

Cloister leading from library's nave to its wing

Sterling's northern wing, accessed from the nave via a cloister hallway, contains the library's offices as well as three major rooms: a lecture hall, the Memorabilia Room, and the Rare Book Room. The Memorabilia Room hosts temporary exhibitions of Yale's archival collections and university history, and serves as an antechamber to the 120-seat lecture hall.[29]

The Rare Book Room, designed after English Jacobean architecture, was built to allow library patrons to browse Yale's collection of rare books and manuscripts.[11] A vaulted, octagonal chapel behind the room was specially constructed to house a copy of the Gutenberg Bible.[5][11] The completion of the Beinecke Library in 1963 provided a more secure, climate-controlled repository for rare books, and the room and chapel now serve as a browsing room for the library's Manuscripts & Archives department.

Courtyard

The library originally had two courtyards designed and landscaped by Beatrix Farrand.[30] In 1997, the western courtyard was enclosed and renovated to become the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library.[12] Sterling's remaining courtyard, named the Selin Courtyard, features motifs from the history of printing.[11][31]

Decoration

The library is one of the most elaborate buildings on the Yale campus. Rogers commissioned artisans, including stained glass artist G. Owen Bonawit and blacksmith Samuel Yellin, who worked with Rogers on many of his buildings, sculptor René Paul Chambellan, and painter Eugene Savage. The building's exterior is decorated with stone gargoyles, reliefs, and inscriptions.[19] The nave is the most ornately decorated library interior, although ornamental features, particularly stained-glass windows, can be found in nearly every room in the building.

Entrance relief

Relief above the front entrance doors on High Street

A relief above the library's main entrance symbolizes the scholarly achievements of ancient civilizations. It is the work of architectural sculptor René Paul Chambellan, who executed a design produced by Lee Lawrie.[32]:282 The scene depicts Cro-Magnon, Egyptian, Assyrian, Hebrew, Arab, Greek, Mayan, and Chinese scholars in low relief, with inscriptions from major works in each writing system.[19] At center is a medieval scholar, and directly above the doors are symbolic representations of major civilizations, which include a Phoenician ship, a Babylonian lamassu and the Capitoline wolf of Rome.[19]

Alma Mater mural

The Alma Mater mural

At the western end of the nave is a fresco painted by Eugene Savage, a professor in the Yale School of Art and Architecture. Savage titled it "The Imagination that Directs the University's Spiritual and Intellectual Efforts," but it is commonly known as the Alma Mater mural for its depiction of a personified "University."[33][34] Savage, an expert in Early Renaissance techniques, painted the mural in his characteristic style, an Art Deco interpretation of traditional Renaissance composition.[35] Surrounding "Alma Mater" are personifications of academic disciplines.[34]

Stained glass

680 unique stained glass panels by G. Owen Bonawit adorn the nave, reading rooms, offices, and tower of the library.[12][36] Eighty decorate the nave, depicting scenes from the history of Yale and New Haven.[1][19] Most reading rooms have stained glass panels that represent themes from their subject matter.[19] Bonawit's firm also designed over 2,000 small outline images to inset in windows without stained glass panes.[36] Although Sterling contains the most in number, Bonawit's panels can be found in many of Yale's Gothic Revival buildings of the same period, including the Sterling Law Building, the Hall of Graduate Studies, and the residential colleges.[36]

Other notable ornament

A corbel sculpted by René Paul Chambellan

In the nave, ten high relief stone panels by Chambellan depict the history of the Yale University Library up to 1865.[19] Bosses on the nave's ceiling depict writing implements. Samuel Yellin, the blacksmith who shaped most of the ironwork for Yale's Gothic buildings, created handwrought elevator doors for the Stacks depicting major trades, as well as ironwork and gates for the building.[8] Other decorative stonework by Chambellan—gargoyles, corbels, and reliefs—can be found throughout the building. While most of his works depict scholarship and university life, several are humorous interpretations of the lives of students and librarians.[37]

Several tributes in the library commemorate pioneering graduates of the university. A portrait of Edward Bouchet, one of Yale's earliest African American graduates, hangs in the nave's transept.[38][39] Near the Franke Family Reading Room is a statue of Yung Wing, the first Chinese graduate of Yale.[40] In 2016 a portrait of the first seven women to receive Ph.D.s from Yale, which those seven women all did in 1894, was placed in the library.[41] The women include Mary Augusta Scott, Elizabeth Deering Hanscom, Margaretta Palmer, Charlotte Fitch Roberts, Cornelia H.B. Rogers, Sara Bulkley Rogers, and Laura Johnson Wylie.[41] The portrait is the first painting hanging in the library to have women as subjects.[41] Brenda Zlamany was the artist.[41]

Collections

Catalog

Card catalogs in the nave, since replaced by an online catalog

The large majority of materials in Sterling are housed in the bookstacks, which are contained in the building's tower. The bookstacks use two classification systems: the Yale Library system and the Library of Congress system. Adopted in the 1890s, the non-standard Yale system became cumbersome and inefficient for cataloging. Though replaced in 1970 by the Library of Congress system, many of the 5.7 million volumes held by the library at that time remain filed in the Yale system.[42] The card catalogs in the nave once contained as many as 9.5 million cards, sorted in 8,700 trays.[10]

Manuscripts & Archives

Manuscripts & Archives is the primary archival repository of the university, housing Yale memorabilia, university archives, historical manuscripts, and personal papers donated to the university.[43] Though the archive uses the former Rare Book Room as its primary reading room, most of the collection is held off-site. Significant materials within Manuscripts & Archives include the papers of Charles Lindbergh, Eero Saarinen, Eli Whitney, and the audio library of Osama bin Laden.[44][45] The archives hosts a notable collection of diplomatic papers, including those of Dean Acheson, Henry Kissinger, Henry Stimson, and Cyrus Vance.[46][47]

Music Library

Irving S. Gilmore Music Library main staircase

Audio, visual, and paper materials related to music are retained in the Irving S. Gilmore Music Library, a facility converted from one of Sterling's courtyards. The collection was established in the mid-19th century under Gustave J. Stoeckel, and was significantly expanded by the acquisition of Lowell Mason's papers and library in 1873.[32] Its collections include one of the largest catalogs of recordings and scores in the United States, including the papers of Charles Ives, Carl Ruggles, Quincy Porter, Horatio Parker, Virgil Thomson, Richard Donovan, and J. Rosamond Johnson.[10] Moved to Sprague Hall of the Yale School of Music in 1955, the collection arrived in Sterling when the Gilmore Library was completed in 1997.[10][12]

Special collections

In addition to the library's main collection, the library houses several significant special collections:

Major editorial projects

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Schiff, Judith Ann (Sep–Oct 2005). "The "Heart of the University" Turns 75". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  2. ↑ Tolles, Bryant F., Jr. (2011). Architecture & Academe: College Buildings in New England Before 1860. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England. pp. 37–39. ISBN 9781584658917. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 "The Sterling Bequest to Yale University". Science 48 (1230): 87. 26 July 1918. doi:10.1126/science.48.1230.87. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  4. ↑ "Yale Central Complex, New Haven Historic Resources Inventory" (PDF). City of New Haven. 1984. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  5. 1 2 3 Bloomer, Kent C. (2000). The Nature of Ornament: Rhythm and Metamorphosis in Architecture. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. pp. 187–185. ISBN 9780393730364. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  6. 1 2 3 Grubiak, Margaret M. (2009). "Reassessing Yale's Cathedral Orgy: The Ecclesiastical Metaphor and the Sterling Memorial Library" (PDF). Winterthur Portfolio: A Journal of American Material Culture (The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum) 43 (2/3): 159–184. doi:10.1086/599848. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  7. ↑ Mills Brown, Elizabeth (1976). New Haven: A Guide to Architecture and Urban Design. New Haven: Yale University Press. p. 128. ISBN 9780300019933. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  8. 1 2 3 "The History of Sterling Memorial Library". Yale University Library. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  9. ↑ Keogh, Andrew (1928). "Notes by the Library, Based on an Address on Alumni Day 1928". Yale University Library Gazette 3: 27–34.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Taylor, Merrily E. (1978). The Yale University Library 1701–1978: its History, Collections, and Present Organization. Yale University Library.
  11. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Husted, Ellery S. (April 1931). "The Sterling Memorial Library". The University Library Gazette 5 (4): 57–65. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  12. 1 2 3 4 Martz, Rebecca (October 2006). "Sterling Histories". Yale University Library Gazette 81 (1/2): 6–7. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  13. 1 2 Goldberger, Paul (9 December 2006). "Yale and the Promise of the Modern". New Haven, CT. Retrieved 15 January 2015.
  14. ↑ Hale, William Harlan (29 April 1929). "Yale's Cathedral Orgy". Nation: 471–472.
  15. 1 2 Goldberger, Paul (1985). "The Sterling Library: A Reassessment". On the Rise: Architecture and Design in a Post Modern Age. Penguin Books. pp. 269–271. ISBN 9780140076325.
  16. ↑ Pinnell, Patrick L. (1999). The Campus Guide: Yale University. Princeton Architectural Press. p. 67. ISBN 1568981678.
  17. ↑ Betsky, Aaron (1994). James Gamble Rogers and the Architecture of Pragmatism. Architectural History Foundation. ISBN 9780262023818.
  18. ↑ Crosbie, Michael J. (22 April 2015). "Stunning Renovation Brings New Radiance To Yale Library". Hartford Courant. Retrieved 22 April 2015.
  19. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "The Decoration of Sterling Memorial Library" (PDF). The University Library Gazette 5 (4): 81–123. April 1931. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  20. ↑ Alden Branch, Mark (14 May 2013). "Sterling's Nave to Close for a Year". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 11 August 2014.
  21. ↑ "Sterling Memorial Library Nave Restoration". Yale University Library. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  22. ↑ Shelton, Jim (6 September 2013). "Yale’s Sterling Memorial Library is getting a $20 million makeover". New Haven Register. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  23. ↑ "Renewing an architectural ‘temple of the mind’ — for a new generation". Yale News. Yale University. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  24. 1 2 Snead, William S. (April 1931). "The Bookstack Tower". The University Library Gazette 5 (4): 77–80. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  25. ↑ "Castle in the air". Yale Alumni Magazine. May–June 2012. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  26. ↑ Snead, William S. (1928). "The Yale Bookstack". Yale University Library Gazette 3: 21–26.
  27. ↑ Langdon, Philip (November 1998). "Renovating a Classic Campus". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 4 April 2014.
  28. ↑ "Linonia & Brothers To Remain Intact". Yale Daily News. 1 April 1971. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  29. ↑ "Lecture Hall and Memorabilia Room". Yale University Library. Yale University. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  30. ↑ Farrand, Beatrix (2009). "Yale University: The Library Courtyard and its Fountain". The Collected Writings of Beatrix Ferrand: American Landscape Gardener, 1872–1959. University Press of New England. pp. 142–144.
  31. ↑ Ota, Chika (16 May 2013). "SML Selin Courtyard". Yale University Office of the Printer. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  32. 1 2 Kent, Allen; Daily, Jay E., eds. (1982). Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science 33 (1st ed.). pp. 267–365.
  33. ↑ "Eugene Francis Savage". National Academy Museum. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  34. 1 2 "Public art at Yale - Alma Mater". Yale University. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  35. ↑ Wageman, Virginia; Freshman, Paul, eds. (2004). Paintings and Sculpture in the Collection of the National Academy of Design: 1826–1925 (1st ed.). Hudson Hills. pp. 492–493. ISBN 9781555950293. Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  36. 1 2 3 Walker, Gay (27 January 2006). "Brilliance All Around: The Stained Glass of Sterling and Its Maker" (PDF). Retrieved 6 April 2014.
  37. ↑ Peiffer, Siobhan (Summer 1997). "Yale's carvings set sense of humor in stone". Yale Herald. Retrieved 29 May 2014.
  38. ↑ Schiff, Judith Ann (Jan–Feb 2006). "Pioneers". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
  39. ↑ Alden Branch, Mark (May–June 2014). "Who was the first African American student at Yale?". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
  40. ↑ "Statue honors accomplishments of Yale's first Chinese student". Yale Bulletin & Calendar 33 (15). 14 January 2005. Retrieved 3 June 2014.
  41. 1 2 3 4 "First female Ph.D.s memorialized".
  42. ↑ Gordon, Gideon (5 November 1970). "Library Changing Catalog System". Yale Daily News. Retrieved 23 April 2014.
  43. ↑ "About Manuscripts & Archives". Yale University Library. Yale University. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  44. ↑ "List of Manuscript Collections". Yale University Manuscripts & Archives. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  45. ↑ Shelton, Jim (29 March 2014). "At Yale, bin Laden’s audiotape collection yields new insights, scholar says". New Haven Register. Retrieved 4 June 2014.
  46. ↑ "Yale to Receive Kissinger Papers and Establish the Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy". YaleNews (Yale University). 14 June 2011. Retrieved 4 June 2014.
  47. ↑ "Kissinger donates his papers to Yale". Fox News (Fox Corporation). Associated Press. 15 June 2014. Retrieved 4 June 2014.
  48. ↑ Vitelli, Karen D. (1970). "The Antiquities Market: News and Commentary on the Illicit Traffic in Antiquities". Journal of Field Archaeology (Boston University) 7 (1): 124. doi:10.1179/009346980791505563. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  49. ↑ Strout, Elizabeth, ed. (1930). Catalogue of the Library of the American Oriental Society. New Haven: Yale University Library. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  50. ↑ "The Yale Print Map Collection". Yale University Library. Yale University. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  51. ↑ "About the Project". Papers of Benjamin Franklin. Yale University. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  52. ↑ McElroy, James (November 2002). "Finding Franklin". Yale Alumni Magazine. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  53. ↑ Grimes, William (9 July 2013). "Edmund S. Morgan, Historian Who Shed Light on Puritans, Dies at 97". New York Times. Retrieved 30 April 2014.
  54. ↑ Rudof, Joanne Weiner (October 2007). "A Yale University and New Haven Community Project: From Local to Global" (PDF). Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  55. ↑ "Yale Boswell Editions". Yale University. Retrieved 28 July 2014.
  56. ↑ Crist, T. J (1993). "Wing, Donald Goddard". In Wedgeworth, Robert. ALA World Encyclopedia of Library and Information Services (3rd ed.). Chicago: American Library Association. pp. 868–869.

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