May 10, 1999

Middlebury College Selects Architect for Library

Project — New York Firm of Gwathmey Siegel to Design

New Facility

The Middlebury College board of trustees has voted

to engage the architectural firm of Gwathmey Siegel and Associates

of New York City to design the expanded Starr Library. The firm

was selected following a presentation that took place on Friday,

May 7 during a meeting of the board on campus.

Gwathmey Siegel’s conceptual plan for the expansion

of Starr Library is to retain the original 1900 library building

and the 1927 additions. Most of the rest of the current building

will be demolished and replaced with a semicircular structure

to be located behind and beside the older sections of Starr.

The new building, which will be architecturally consistent with

the other buildings on the historic front quad of the Middlebury

campus, will provide for efficient and flexible space that will

serve the College’s library needs well into the next century.

While the expanded Starr Library is under construction,

library operations will be housed in the current science center,

which will be renovated this fall for library use following the

move of the science faculty and their equipment to Bicentennial

Hall. The temporary library facility will be ready for occupancy

in May 2000. Construction on the new Starr Library will begin

during the summer of 2000, with completion anticipated in June

2002.

Plans for the new library accommodate the increasing

use of technology to enhance teaching and research in the academic

library environment, while permitting sufficient expansion space

to house the College’s ever-growing collection of printed materials.

Plans also call for increased library seating to accommodate

the planned growth in the student body. Group study areas and

meeting rooms will offer the opportunity for interactive and collaborative

learning.

Charles Gwathmey and Robert Siegel have practiced

architecture together for more than three decades. Their award-winning

firm has extensive experience on college and university campuses,

with projects at Cornell, Harvard, and Princeton, among other

institutions. Their Science, Industry, and Business Library in

New York City, a unit of the New York Public Library, is considered

by many to be the best example of a 21st-century library now in

operation.

Gwathmey Siegel has also been commissioned to design

the new United States Mission to the United Nations, and recently

completed the addition to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Solomon R. Guggenheim

Museum-both in New York City.