Fisher Fine Arts Library
Fisher Fine Arts Library at the University of Pennsylvania is a masterwork of Victorian architecture designed by Frank Furness and completed in 1891. Originally built as the University Library, the building's massive red brick and terra cotta facades, distinctive tower, and spectacular reading room represent Furness's mature achievement and demonstrate how functional requirements can generate architectural expression. The building has been called an early example of functionalist architecture for its honest expression of structure and mechanical systems. Now housing Penn's fine arts collections, Fisher Fine Arts Library continues serving scholarly purposes in spaces that inspire as well as accommodate.[1]
Design
[edit | edit source]Furness designed the library to meet practical requirements—book storage, reader accommodation, natural lighting, and ventilation—while creating architecture of distinctive character. The building's asymmetrical composition groups different functions in visible volumes: the great reading room, the bookstack tower, the entrance hall, and subsidiary spaces each receive appropriate architectural treatment. The tower, rising prominently above the campus, serves as ventilator for the bookstacks, its height creating the stack effect that draws air through the collections. This expression of mechanical function through architectural form anticipates twentieth-century approaches to honest building design.[2]
The facades display Furness's characteristic vocabulary: bold massing, aggressive ornament, and polychrome materials that create richly textured surfaces. Red brick predominates, with terra cotta, brownstone, and iron providing contrast and accent. Windows vary in size and shape according to interior requirements, their placement following function rather than formal symmetry. The entrance, marked by oversized arch and dense ornament, creates appropriate threshold between campus and scholarly interior.[1]
Reading Room
[edit | edit source]The reading room constitutes the building's most impressive space, its exposed iron structure, brick walls, and overhead lighting creating an atmosphere of serious study. The room's height and scale evoke great libraries of earlier centuries while expressing contemporary construction honestly. Iron columns and trusses remain visible rather than concealed behind applied finishes, demonstrating structural systems while supporting the room's practical functions. Natural light enters through clerestory windows and skylights, supplemented by fixtures that provide illumination for evening study.[2]
The reading room's design reflects Furness's belief that architecture should serve and inspire simultaneously. Students working in the space experience both practical accommodation and architectural quality that elevates scholarly activity. The room's materials—brick, iron, wood—require minimal maintenance while aging gracefully, their surfaces acquiring character that new construction cannot replicate. The space continues serving scholarly purposes over a century after completion, its design proving both durable and adaptable.[1]
Historical Significance
[edit | edit source]The Fisher Fine Arts Library has been recognized as nationally significant for its architecture and its place in library design history. The building's expression of function through form—its ventilation tower, its separated bookstacks and reading room, its honest structural expression—anticipated developments that other architects would pursue decades later. Louis Sullivan, who briefly worked in Furness's office, may have absorbed lessons that informed his own influential work. The building's influence extends through the architects who studied it and adapted its principles.[2]
The building's designation as a National Historic Landmark recognizes both its architectural quality and its importance to American architectural development. Restoration projects have maintained the building's character while updating systems for contemporary use. The combination of historical significance and continued function demonstrates that landmark buildings can serve practical purposes while preserving irreplaceable architectural heritage.[1]
Current Use
[edit | edit source]The building now houses Penn's fine arts library, with collections in art history, architecture, and related fields serving students and scholars. The reading room provides study space whose architectural quality distinguishes it from generic library facilities. The building's location within Penn's campus makes it accessible to the university community while its architectural distinction attracts visitors interested in Furness's work.[2]
Renovation and expansion projects have adapted the building for contemporary library needs—electronic resources, climate control, accessibility—while preserving its essential character. The building demonstrates that historic libraries can serve twenty-first-century scholarly requirements without sacrificing the qualities that make them architecturally significant. Fisher Fine Arts Library continues the scholarly purposes for which it was built, in spaces that honor those purposes through architectural excellence.[1]