Читать книгу How to plan a library building for library work - Charles C. Soule - Страница 20

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Are there any points where architect and librarian may clash? There will be many points of course where they will differ at first, and have to get together through argument. But are there any influences toward a deadlock?

On the part of the librarian there should be no prejudice. If he be immature, or conceited and opinionated, and only half informed, he may not deserve to win in such a contest of ideas, but his bias at all events would be professional, not selfish.

On the side of the architect, however, might there not be some bias? In the first place, professional bias toward some style he has got his mind set on? He may be too willing to sacrifice utilitas to venustas on this account. During the Boston Public Library discussion, an architect wrote to a daily journal: “Library buildings should be treated as monuments, not as workshops, and must be made beautiful even at the sacrifice of utility.” But if any architect or any trustees now have such views, the building committee is to blame if it employs him, or even admits him to a competition.

In two points, however, selfish considerations might bias an architect, if he were poor or ambitious. In the first place his remuneration is by percentage on the total cost. The more his client spends, the more pay he gets. This situation conflicts with economy. In the second place, his reputation and his future prosperity depend not so much on librarians as upon the general public, which admires size, costly material, decoration, show. Witness the constant reappearance in magazines of the worst libraries as examples of good architecture. Marching with his own artistic temperament, this conflicts with economy, utility, and simplicity.

As to the danger of such a conflict, I personally have little fear, if some care is taken in selecting the architect. I know many of the profession. All of them I believe would spurn the first temptation, as they would an open bribe. Some of them might be influenced insidiously by the second, under the guise of Pure Art. But if shown by an expert librarian, worthy of belief, that any architectural beauty would tend to cripple the work of the library, I believe that every one would yield his views promptly and willingly. Indeed, on the first point, I have known an architect to sacrifice his own interest knowingly.

See anecdote at the bottom of p. 131 proximo.