“Consider the plans first, rather than the elevation. The outside of the library building is its least important feature.”—Duff-Brown.[73]
The buildings planned thus, by gradual development of ideal interior arrangements, are very likely in the hands of a skillful architect to turn out architecturally beautiful. For the designer, as he has advised about structural points has gradually evolved from these details a harmonious conception of what the library is to be and do, the relation it holds to its surroundings and to the public, until an ideal scheme of proportion and sympathy flashes into his mind, and Utilitas has led him up to complete Venustas.
Never Copy Blindly
I should not suppose that any building committee would be senseless enough to “convey” an exterior from another building labelled “library,” and try to cram their own institution into it, but in reading a recent number of The Librarian of London, I found this paragraph:[74] “Within the last few weeks the surveyor was instructed to draw plans from a photograph of another institution.... Without knowing all the factors going to the making of the plan of a library in another part of the country it would be impossible to say, without consultation, that they would be suitable for the particular circumstances of this one.” But it is not necessary to go so far abroad for a warning. We all remember that eminent trustees and a distinguished architect went farther to appropriate a design, and imitate it here in America—not often accused of poverty of invention. The cult that admired it, admired it so much as to copy their borrowed work for buildings they labelled “libraries” all over the United States. If you do not realize the fidelity of this “copy,” and if you own Champney’s “Public Libraries,” look at page 134, “The Boston Public Library,” and then turn to “Bibliothèque Ste. Geneviève, Paris,” opposite page 139. And if you have Burgoyne’s “Library Construction,” read pages 255 to 257, which reflect in mild and courteous terms the criticisms of American librarians on this architectural plagiarism. To recall the criticisms of Winsor, or Poole, or Cutter, would not be so mild.
As a result of similar mistakes, librarians are united as to slavish imitations of exteriors or interiors, but perhaps some small libraries might be willing to copy an interior arrangement more or less closely. Before doing so, however, they should secure overwhelming testimony as to the practical merits of the plan as adapted to new needs; and even then a practical librarian and architect could probably find modifications which would make it more thoroughly fitted to all local conditions. Certainly another plan ought not be copied until after careful consideration of all present and anticipated requirements of the problem in hand.
“No library can be successfully imitated from another.”—W. A. Otis (architect).[75]
“No model plan can be said to be best.”—Burgoyne.[76]
“It is useless to attempt setting forward an ideal plan.”—O. Bluemner.[77]