The Beinecke Library at Yale
Photographs of an architectural icon
Earlier this month my husband and I took a special trip to New Haven, CT, to see and photograph the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale. I had heard about this library from various sources, including from popular fiction books by Dr. Deborah Harkness, a renowned historian and author. She writes about libraries in a way that makes them sound so special!
I have been a fan of libraries since growing up surrounded by books as the daughter of two book-lovers — an English professor father and a mother who was a scholar, avid reader, and teacher. Almost everyone in my family worked at one time or another at a local Kent State bookstore. I worked in a library at Oberlin College as an undergraduate student. My older sister is a children's librarian. So I feel a great attachment to books and libraries.
This library in particular has very interesting architecture. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill (SOM) and built in 1963, the building is basically a marble cube containing a glass cube. Marble squares that make up the outside are cut so thin that they let some daylight through, but not enough to damage the books. Inside there is a huge open space so you can see the entire facade from the inside.
Within that open space is a huge glass box containing six levels of books (above ground) beautifully lit up — it is called the "jewel box" and the books really do look like precious jewels. The general public cannot go into the jewel box, but can walk around it on two levels and see exhibits of some of the more famous books the library has, including a Gutenberg bible.
Below ground there is room for thousands more books under the plaza, adjacent to the sunken plaza designed by Isamu Noguchi, whose Red Cube I photographed in NYC. His plaza at the Beinecke is all white and contains another cube as well as a circle and a pyramid.
I live for this kind of trip, where I see a very special building and open myself to understanding its presence. I try to capture what I'm seeing in elegant ways. The sun did not fully cooperate, but I enjoyed my chance to photograph it nonetheless.
And yes, I did my usual crazy vertical panoramas! Here is one from the base of the two staircases…
Here is one from the second floor. I find it fun to take these because they include so much of the building in a single shot, even though it is distorted in funky ways.
Do you have a favorite building you’ve visited and taken photos of? Let me know!