A 'beacon' for Exeter

Fellow alum Janney Wilson ’83, chair of Trustees’ building and ground committee, notes the library’s critical presence on campus, mentioning ongoing plans for upgrades and adjustments to library spaces to better suit the campus community’s evolving needs. “It’s a real focal point, and we want to ensure it continues to serve a terrific purpose for students, staff, and faculty.” As a student, Wilson spent a lot of time in the library, studying and socializing with friends. “The architecture sometimes begged a little troublemaking,” she says, recalling paper airplanes zooming across the atrium. But she also found the library’s off-campus visitors fascinating, the busloads of architecture students that would “lie on the oriental rug in the middle of the floor and look up at the ceiling.” Fourteen-year-olds didn’t always appreciate the design, she notes, but they could see how serious the architecture students were.

Ann Beha Architects has worked on multiple Exeter library restoration and renovation projects over the past two decades, and architect Josh Lacasse has managed several of those projects. “Our work tends to involve the intersection of historic property with new use, or reframing space for uses in the future,” he says. “We have a history with this building and a sense of appreciation for it.” Like Richards, Lacasse admires Kahn’s use of material. “He saw the red brick on the predominantly Georgian campus and recognized that that was the architectural vocabulary, but he deployed it in a new — what I would call sympathetic — way. The library sits on the green, across from the Academy Building, using similar materials but in a different way. From a personal and professional perspective that aligns with my values as an architect in that we never seek to produce carbon copies of historic buildings, but to produce work that acknowledges history but doesn’t try to imitate.” There are challenges to working with a historic building, of course, says Lacasse with his project-manager hat on. “Integrating modern technology into a building of this vintage is a major challenge. On the other hand, technology is on our side in that so many things can be wireless. So, we’ve got wireless systems deployed in the building, because it’s not like a typical office building where you can run a bunch of cable above the ceiling tiles and forget about it — every wire has to find a place to go, a place to hide.”

Lacasse feels the building’s impact on a more immediate level, too, having studied it since he was in design school. “It falls into a very small category of projects that, having studied it and finally getting to see it in person, exceeds expectations,” says Lacasse. “Oftentimes when you’ve built up an admiration of a building through books and magazines or other formats, when you actually visit, them they sort of fall flat.” This was the opposite, he says. “I think it’s the emotional experience that you get from the light and the warmth and the inviting nature of the finishes, the sensory experience. This was, ‘Wow, this is better than I thought!’”

Another sensory appreciation comes from Carl Jay, director of historic preservation at Shawmut Design and Construction, who has also worked on the library since the early aughts. Jay, whose bachelor degree is in wood science and technology, has always been moved by what he describes as a “monumental” building. “It was amazing,” he says. “As we took things apart, you understood what Kahn was doing: mechanical systems were threaded into that building incredibly tightly, everything completely concealed. And I was impressed by the materials. The brick was the last brick that this plant provided from Exeter, so that was cool. And the idea of the carrels being white oak at the windows was beautiful. Then you get into the massive concrete structure itself, which is incredibly well done. From the central hall you have these great big round openings through which you can see the bookcases in gorgeous white-oak panel, and then there’s the light shining in from the atrium. There’s beauty in all of that, in being in that great hall, looking up, and then seeing all of this.”

Peter Reiss, of Architectural Resources Cambridge, another campus partner on renovation and development projects, studied the library in architecture school — “I knew about Exeter from learning about that building before I knew about the school” — where it was touted as an exemplar of modern architecture. As an architect, Reiss discovered new ways to appreciate Kahn’s work. “I’ve always enjoyed library spaces that help contemplative learning and thinking,” he says. “Those wood carrels along the windows are wonderful — individual, private spaces, but off this big connected space. I love the way Kahn blends this space that’s impressive and accessible, where it’s easy to understand where to go and find books, but then also creates these nooks and crannies. I’ve worked on designs for other libraries where I try to create that balance – a variety of spaces for learning and study and interaction — and I think the Kahn library does that beautifully.”