Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library is a Modernist building located on the southwest corner of Yale’s Hewitt University Quadrangle, more commonly known as Beinecke Plaza. (1) A mechanical renovation was completed in September 2016. (2) The library is notable for the octagonal marble panels that make up its exterior as well as its distinctive boxy shape. The Beinecke’s Modernist aesthetic and cool color scheme contrast with the warmer colors and neo-Gothic and neoclassical architecture of the surrounding buildings. (3) At the center of the building, stacks of books lie within a glass shaft, allowing curators to control the humidity. (4) The partially translucent marble panels allow natural light through while protecting the books from the Sun’s direct rays. On a sunny day, the interior walls of the Beinecke seem to glow.

The Beinecke was constructed by Yale to house its rare books and manuscripts. It has not housed any other institution since construction.

At least until 1886, the lot where the Beinecke now sits seems to have been occupied by a unnamed private apartment building. (29) Between 1886 and 1901, however, that building was purchased by Yale to serve as a student apartment building and given a new moniker: the Highwall, apparently named for the intersection it sat on, is labeled as a student apartment building and a dormitory on the 1901 and 1924 Sanborn maps of New Haven, respectively. (30) The Highwall Annex, which bore the Beinecke’s exact address number, does not seem to have been constructed until after the university purchased the original building, as the annex does not appear until the 1901 map. A carpet cleaner, two storage facilities, and a private duplex also occupied the site around 1924.(31)

The incorporation of these properties into the campus was part of a larger process of acquisition by Yale of well-located buildings.(32)In the early 1930s, the university’s need for student housing would lead to the creation of the residential college system.

While the Beinecke has been owned by Yale since its construction, the story of the building is its own fascinating social history.

In 1959, Yale University Librarian James T. Babb, who held the position from 1943 until his retirement in 1965, wrote to Provost Norman Buck with a set of concerns: The section of Sterling Memorial Library that housed the university’s rare book collection was “jammed full with no place to expand.” (22) Even worse, “The rooms are not air-conditioned and are too dry and overheated in winter and too humid in summer, which is very destructive to fragile and valuable books and manuscripts.” (23) A new rare book library was needed, one with enough space and the correct conditions to safeguard the university’s collections. Luckily, Babb had established relationships with a number of wealthy Yale alumni interested in rare books, among them the Beinecke family. (24) Dean of the Yale School of Architecture Paul Rudolph proposed a competition among four architects. (25) One of the four, Gordon Bunshaft, insisted that an architect must “learn about a building’s program from talking to the clients”; he believed that the proposed competition would not allow him to do so and that it would “inevitably [result] in compromised designs.” (26) Accordingly, he offered his services directly to the university provost, met with the Beineckes, and received the commission. (27)

The building Bunshaft created does, of course, serve its intended purpose—housing the university’s books and making them available to researchers—but interest from those outside the academic community has also influenced the way the building is administrated. The university at first planned to make the building accessible only to researchers during business hours. That policy was scrapped, however, when it was discovered that the building had broader appeal: it became something of a tourist destination for visitors to the city. The university decided to allow everyone, academically affiliated or not, to access the building seven days a week, and it has stayed that way since. (28)

The Beinecke is situated on the southwest corner of the Beinecke Plaza. Also on the plaza are the Schwarzman Center—which comprises Commons, the Memorial Rotunda, and Woolsey Hall—Woodbridge Hall, and the Scroll and Key Tomb. To the south are Berkeley and Grace Hopper Colleges, William L. Harkness Hall, all situated on Cross Campus. The library is right at the center of Yale’s main campus; a line drawn from the Divinity School to the Medical School, a distance of nearly two miles, crosses right next to it. (19)

As noted above, the Beinecke’s style and cool color scheme contrast with the warmer colors and more traditional styles of the surrounding buildings. Bunshaft himself “admitted that the general tone of the plaza is more tan than white, and that the library is comparatively ‘cold on the outside.’” (20) However, this juxtaposition of colors is due at least in part to the necessity of substituting Vermont marble for the Peruvian onyx Bunshaft wanted to use. Ironically, the more local material set the Beinecke at odds with its immediate architectural environment. Moreover, the architect carefully considered how the building would stand relative to the other structures on the plaza. The top of the Beinecke is exactly level with the top of Commons, for example. (21)

Through modern eyes, though the Beinecke’s white and dark gray noticeably contrast with the reds, tans, and light grays of its vicinity, it is interesting to speculate that it is these very colors that rescue it from the fate of buildings like Ezra Stiles and Morse Colleges, which seem to be more a relic of the 1960s than an enduring fixture on campus. Indeed, the Beinecke would be entirely at home placed next to Yale’s CEID, or another such building.