Atrium

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An airy and light-filled atrium welcomes library patrons just inside the library’s main interior doors and it soars into the Hortorium spaces on the 4th and 5th floors. Serving as the connection between the original building and the newer addition in the back, the atrium replaces the 9 tiers of self-supporting stacks that were in the original building. All of the key services of the library--information and circulation desks, computer classrooms, new books and current periodicals—wrap around the atrium on the first floor and the stacks surround the atrium on the upper floors.

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In conceiving the design of this beautiful space, architect Beyhan Karahan has counterbalanced the potentially overwhelming impression of an atrium with a surprising feeling of closeness. The trick? An old proportional device from the 16th century that reduces the visual distance between two points through a series of columns that increase in height as they approach the back of the atrium. Glass panels at the atrium’s top let in generous streams of natural light, and the overall effect is one of clarity and lightness.

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© 2007 Albert R. Mann Library
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