furnesque: Library Company of PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia, PA1880 The Library Company of Philadelphia o

furnesque:

Library Company of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, PA
1880

TheLibrary Company of Philadelphia on the NW corner of Locust and Juniper Streets was designed by Frank Furness in 1879. Furness would receive the commission after a nearly unanimous vote put him ahead of fellow competitors Theophilus Parsons Chandler Jr., Collins & Autenrieth,Addison Hutton, and James Charles Sidney.

Motivated by a desire for a modern, more fireproof building and Philadelphia’s cultural shift to the west with the construction of City Hall, the Library Company requested a building “as plain as would be consistent with a decent regard for the character of the institution, and be as far as possible a reproduction its exterior of the present structure.” 

(librarycompany.org)

From Frank Furness: Architecture and the Violent MindbyMichael J. Lewis:

     ”Clearly these requirements suggest not one building but two: either a plain modern one or a reprise of (William) Thornton’s elegant Palladian design. Baffled, most of the competitors flailed in the unhappy middle ground between copyism and utilitarianism. The firm of Collins & Autenrieth, those German academics against whom Furness often competed, submitted two entirely different designs: one, a lackluster updating of Thornton’s building and the other, a modern German Gothic design. This tentativeness was fatal, for Furness was by now an audacious competitor. Making Virtue out of the restricted budget, he capitalized on his limited palatte of brick and terra cotta, boldy fracturing his roofline with top-heavy wall dormers and a giddy display of chimneys. He also broke the composition into discrete parts and positioned an entrance block fronting the larger reading room. Benjamin Franklin’s statue, a hallmark of Thronton’s original building, was now thrust forward into space in a precarious aedicule. (In execution, the directors of the library ensured that Franklin’s perch was made more visible secure.) The result was anything but a drab brick box. Within was a reading room of striking openness and lightness, the glass and iron formula of Furness’s bank interiors transposed to a more restful key in a space intended for repose.
     Furness provided just enough tribute to the original building to satisfy his clients, but otherwise he updated his colonial forms freely, just as he did with his Gothic forms.”

 In 1940, suffering from financial problems, the Library Company tore the Furness building down to be replaced with a parking lot in which they had a stake in the profits. They would operate out of the Ridgeway building at 900 South Broad Street until 1965, moving back to Locust Street where they are currently housed at 1314 Locust.

(wikipedia.com)

(The interior can be seen here.)