An aerial shot of the Barker Engineering Library reading room from the 1930s.
Now, for the first time in more than 70 years, the space beneath the dome — the Barker Library reading room, a 75-foot rotunda with an intricate 27-foot skylight, or oculus — has been restored to its original splendor. “If the Great Dome is MIT’s signature building,” says Stephanie Hartman, a librarian at Barker who has been researching the history of the reading room, “then in some sense, the reading room is MIT’s signature space.”
The restoration of the reading room was just part of a renovation of the dome itself that involved, among other things, lifting off all of its limestone cladding so that a new waterproof membrane could be injected beneath it.
The dome of the reading-room rotunda, whose diameter and height are both 75 feet, is nested inside the 100-foot-wide Great Dome; the two domes converge at the circular oculus, which is set in the center of both. In 1942, the oculus met the wartime fate of many skylights in U.S. cities: It was covered over, to avoid providing an easily identifiable nighttime target for enemy bombers.
“Library Days” (+)
Country Style Australia
photographer: Prue Ruscoe
“Library Days” (+)
Country Style Australia
photographer: Prue Ruscoe
The World of Interiors, November 2009
photographer: Roland Beaufre
Antique double doors open out to to give a view of the library and its early 19th century Italian bookcase.
photographer: Benjamin Monn
Zurich University (Switzerland) Law School library
architect: Santiago Calatrava
Harper Memorial Library at the University of Chicago
Haas Family Arts Library, Yale
I have always associated orange with museums.
I really dig the orange— sorry, paprika— carpet.
(Source: shutl0w)
Biblioteca Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain) by whatisthedifference
I love this lighting.
“Boat in Library”
photographer: Tim Walker
via Jen Bekman
On view as part of Summer Reading, July 16 through August 22, 2009 at Jen Bekman Gallery.
I forget when I started getting into nautical things. It was that hybrid period during late high school and early college. I wanted to learn how to sail (still do), I liked anchors (still do), and I liked seeing nautical themes in clothing and housing (still do). I don’t know if I’ll put a boat in Futurehouse, but there needs to be something nautical.
Oh, and here’s my name in flag.
Jen Bekman Gallery blog » Blog Archive » An Interview with Tim Walker
