Something about the Nature of Architecture: The History of the Robert B. Haas Family Arts Library

Light

Rudolph Reading Room, 1960s

Interior, Arts Library (1960s)

The use of windows, light wells, and caverns creates a balance of natural light and shadow, volume and negative space, throughout Rudolph Hall. For artificial lighting, Rudolph designed linear arrays of incandescent R-lamps to provide ample illumination for readers in the library and to help define the volume of space in open areas like the Rudolph Reading Room. Though these lights were eventually removed and replaced with flourescents, they were brought back during the most recent renovation in 2008.

Arts Library with cargo netting covering windows (1960s) 

Exterior windows, A + A building (ca 1990s) 

Rudolph designed canvas cargo netting to shade the interior of the building. These were intended to reduce heat and glare from the large south facing windows of the building, but they were not very popular, casting checkered patterns on tables, making it difficult to read or write, and doing little to mitigate heat gain. We can observe the cargo netting in photographs taken between 1963-1969.

In the 1970 Orr, de Cossy, Winder renovation, the cargo netting was eliminated and sunscreens were added to the outside of the building. These can be seen in photographs of the building exterior between 1970-1994. These reduced heat but had other issues and were eventually removed. In 1974, when asbestos ceilings were removed from the building, flourescent lighting would be installed to replace Rudolph's carefully designed rows of overhead lamps.

Until 1994, the windows throughout the building were single-pane glass which would generate considerable heat in the summer and led to rapid cooling during winters months, this contributing to high energy costs. These were replaced in the 1990s and again in the mid- 2000s. The building would lack air conditioning of any kind until 2008. We can see large fans that were used to cool the library in some older images, before the 2008 renovation.

Arts Library Mezzanine  with visible fan on desk-- 1960s