l reclamation of the old structure, with rehabilitation of all its decorative elements, retrofitting of the structure, and duplication of most fittings and some furnishings. The addition was to create more than double the available space, but without detracting from the Goodhue building's position of dominance in its immediate environment.
The addition, designed by architects Norman Pfeiffer, Hugh Hardy and Malcolm Holzman, required the removal of a small wing of the old building at its east end. The new structure was attached to the east end of the Goodhue building, allowing free access between the two buildings at all four floors of the old structure. The Pfeiffer annex also extends four floors below street level--almost tripling the space that had been available in the old building--and is accessible, via escalators, through an eight-story atrium.
Most approaches to the Central Library pass through canyons of tall buildings--from a dozen to fifty stories. The Library occupies enough space in its two-block setting to have an immediate impact on the viewer. The cream-colored mass and the tower, with its brightly mosaiced pyramid top, constitute an abrupt break from the jumbled surfaces of the older commercial buildings and the sleek monochrome skyscrapers. But only the approach from the northwest gives much of an impression of the building as it once was. There were, originally, almost no taller buildings on most sides of the Library and because the west front (the main entrance) is heavily landscaped, with a long slowly rising approach, the viewer sees the building with the most possible open space around it. By comparison, on the approach up Hope Street the building is completely dwarfed by the gigantic skyscraper on the right and other tall buildings on the left. This is the fatade on which the tower has the shallowest setback and, since only the central third of the fatade is visible between the surrounding buildin...