NORTHAMPTON — Several years ago, after she’d been chosen by Smith College to redesign the school’s aging Neilson Library, artist and architect Maya Lin visited the school and told a packed audience at Sage Hall that her vision for revamping the library involved reducing its overall footprint and making it a better fit for the campus.
A wave of additions to the early 20th-century building had ended up forming what was in effect an “aggressively bad” wall in the middle of campus, Lin said, as laughter rippled through the audience, the Gazette reported at the time. But, Lin added, the initial library design “had flow. It’s going to come back so easily, you’ll see.”
A little less than six years later, the remodeled Neilson Library, closed for the better part of the past four years, is now reopening to the campus community. And Lin, who first gained prominence in 1981 when she won a national design competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. — while still an undergraduate at Yale University — clearly seems to have made good on her promise.
The once hulking wings added to the north and south ends of the original library, which opened in 1909, have been replaced by curved, light-filled wings of “jewel box” construction, made from a mix of masonry, wood and glass; they both feature extensive windows that offer impressive views of the campus and surrounding woods and hills. The removal of the old wings has also opened up passage across the campus grounds in front of and around the library.
And the original Neilson building, also known as the Central Hall, has retained its brick facade but been extensively remodeled within, most notably through the addition of a four-story oculus that functions as a sort of giant skylight and a central architectural framework.
Overall, the new library seems awash in light and feels more spacious than the older version — though it’s actually slightly smaller — with outside light increased and interior sight lines expanded, in part through the use of glass in place of inside walls for various rooms and spaces.
Even more importantly, campus officials say, the library has been reimagined as an “intellectual commons,” a center for scholarship, study and collaborative learning. Some new features include media production studios where students can record videos and podcasts; classrooms and flexible-use spaces for special projects and for working with archival materials; and a central repository for all of the college’s special collections, which previously were housed in different places on campus.
Susan Fliss, Smith’s Dean of Libraries, says the revamped Neilson will also be a place where students will be encouraged to work directly with librarians, writing coaches, technologists, Special Collections staff, and student tutors.
“We want students to feel they can always get their questions answered here,” Fliss said during a recent tour of the library.
Lin served as the project’s architectural designer. The principal architect was Shepley Bulfinch, a Boston-based firm founded in 1874 that also has offices in Connecticut, Texas and Arizona. At a cost of $120 million, the library renovation is the biggest construction project on campus in years, and it’s the biggest project Lin has worked on in years as well, according to Smith.
There’s one reason in particular Lin took the project on, according to Stacey Schmeidel, the school’s senior director for news and strategic communications. Lin’s mother, the late Julia Chang Lin, was a 1951 Smith graduate who came to the school after narrowly escaping the Chinese Civil War in 1949; a writer and scholar, she later played a key role in establishing the field of Chinese Studies in U.S. colleges and universities.
As Maya Lin recently told The New York Times during a visit to the nearly finished library, “I owe my existence to Smith…. I just really wish (my mother) were alive to see this now.”
Lin’s designs have reflected her interest in environmental issues and sustainability, in particular how buildings are balanced with a landscape and constructed in the most efficient manner possible. Smith officials say Lin has incorporated those ideas in the Neilson Library through means such as the use of natural light and by using some locally sourced materials, including limestone.
In addition, windows on the upper level of the west side of the building have been given a special coating that makes them appear solid so that birds don’t attempt to fly through them.
One other point: a 125-year-old elm tree that had to be taken down outside the library because of utility work has been returned, in some fashion, to the new building in the form of several tables and benches that were made by Gill wood craftsman Sam French (see accompanying story).
Fliss, the Smith library dean, says she’s also impressed with the variety of furniture the new library has. Different-sized and shaped chairs, tables and study carrels are located throughout the building to accommodate a variety of students and the manner in which they want to study, she says.
And in a curved room outside the Special Collections Center, whose wide windows offer an expansive view of the south side of the campus, she pointed to a table that can be lowered or raised at the touch of a button to accommodate people of different heights, whether sitting or standing at the table.
From both an aesthetic and pragmatic perspective, Fliss said, the mix of varied furniture “gives students a lot of options.” With a laugh, she added that it’s not yet clear which areas of the library might end up being most popular for students who come to study: “We’ll see where they drag the furniture.”
Schmeidel, the college communications director, says she favors the third floor of the north wing (named after former Smith President Ruth Simmons; the south wing is named for former President Mary Maples Dunn). Fliss suspects the fourth floor of the central building might prove especially appealing, at least in good weather, as the expansive space includes an outside terrace with fine views to the south, west and north.
The revamped library also includes a cafe with a range of magazines for browsing, an exhibition area for student projects and other displays, and a “Reflections” room for meditation, prayer or quiet time.
The latter space, as well as the addition of more natural light in the library, became part of the design in part because of student feedback in the early design phase of the project, Fliss notes.
“We’re still waiting to see how these new spaces will be used and how we can best accommodate students,” she said. “But I think we’re all going to appreciate the changes that have been made.”
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.