TRANSFERRED TO HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY May 7,1954 the Allied Trades of the Pacific Coast. Entered at San Francisco Post Office as Second Class Matter. Cover Design, "Pueblo Architecture" Ernest E. Weihe, winner of second prize in The Architect and Engineer KG 10181 (19-5 T The New San Francisco Public Library By ARTHUR BROWN, Jr.* HE salient characteristic of the new San Francisco Public Library seems to me to be its well distributed and organic plan. Mr. Kelham has molded the exacting requirements of a modern library building into a whole which adapts itself admirably to the difficulties of the shape of the lot, and at the same time harmonizes with the general conception of the Civic Center. The expression of such a complicated group of requirements in beautiful and noble architectural forms has been accomplished in the simple and direct manner which characterizes all the best work in architecture, and great feeling and skill have been shown in the grasping of opportunities for monumental effects which make a universal appeal. The new Library is free from puerile attempts at the picturesque and the slavish copying which mars so much of modern work. It is a nicely balanced arrangement of the elements necessary to a modern library, expressed without affectation or self-consciousness; and, to the very great credit of the architect, the exterior and interior have that close relation which good taste requires. The exterior of the building consists of a delicately rusticated basement crowned by a belt course and surmounted by a high story pierced by ranges of graceful arches, which light the larger and more important units of the plan. This is the "piano nobile" of the building, and is admirably set off by the high basement. The arches facing the Civic Center are framed by free standing Ionic columns and form a feature strongly marked by the play of light and shade, and giving accent to the entrance façade. The side façade on Fulton street is very properly expressed by an unbroken arcade flanked at either end by flat pavilions. *Member of the firm of Bakewell & Brown. |