Читать книгу How to plan a library building for library work - Charles C. Soule - Страница 14

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Here naturally the librarian must have pre-eminence. While the architect may well correct inexperience in construction, and may chasten poor taste in ornament, he and the building committee ought to defer to the librarian on all questions of administration, and only oppose or override him where he is clearly unripe, “faddy” or wrong. Certainly, in planning, the architect should try patiently to meet all needs of storage or service as presented by competent authority. Here is the core of the problem: by the test of usefulness this particular building is to be judged a success or a failure.

But the librarian should be sure rather than obstinate. While he must be clear what he wants to do, he should remember that there may be several ways of doing it. If he is really an intelligent as well as an expert librarian, he will often find in the architect a helpful inventiveness to which he should yield an equal adaptability. Some of the best library ideas are an architect’s development of a librarian’s idea;—witness the stack.

As to a union of use and beauty, I would quote the Alumni Committee on the Harvard University Library:[16] “Not only should the new library be as perfect in plan and equipment as a wise and generous expenditure can make it, it should also, avoiding any display of costliness, possess a beauty and dignity of its own, both within and without, that it may be a constant source of pleasure and inspiration to all who use it.”