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.