Toronto U of T: Robarts Library Renovations & Robarts Common | ?m | ?s | U of T | Diamond Schmitt

Never really understood the urban legend about the sinking library, considering the fact that the building code has a separate design category for libraries. If memory serves me correctly, libraries actually have among the highest factored design loads stipulated for any type of structure.
 
Every university in the western world seems to have a sinking library myth, and I bet it's more persistent in those that have engineering departments...
 
Apparently there is evidence -- hindsight is always 20/20 -- the Robarts y architects were mentally ill when they designed the building.

Politicians being dumb as nails at the best of times, did not recognize they were buying from the insane. They bought this junk hook line and sinker.

Additionally, so it goes, John Robarts was appalled when he saw the monstrosity erected in his name and tried to distance himself from the building for the rest of his life. Who can blame him?
 
Mystic Point said:
Additionally, so it goes, John Robarts was appalled when he saw the monstrosity erected in his name and tried to distance himself from the building for the rest of his life. Who can blame him?
Click to expand...

I can, even though that sounds like another myth. Robarts is an awesome building despite the lack of natural light and the floorplan. The attention to details is spectacular, the way the concrete motifs carry over to the interior makes the effect so intense. See it from the pedestrian island at Queen's park and Hoskins. The concrete is so neutral, blending into the urban form while simultaneously dominating the landscape. It can seem harsh, but it also seems to be molded in the image of an iridescent coloured, ornate looking bird. The purists of Brutalism may find fault, but it's a building that used tenets of the style to its advantage.

I wonder what adma thinks on Mystic Point's insightful comment...
 
Major upgrade planned for Robarts Library

TheStar.com - GTA - Major upgrade planned for Robarts Library

Queen's Park to announce today it will give U of T $15M to kick off renovations, adding new wing

February 28, 2008
Louise Brown
Education Reporter

Fort Book, the infamous concrete library at the heart of Canada's largest university, is planning an airy new $75 million upgrade for the first time in 35 years, and Queen's Park will provide $15 million today to get it started, the Star has learned.

The University of Toronto's Robarts Library, whose massive bulk has towered over the downtown campus since 1973, is planning a new wing, 2,752 new study spaces, fancy outdoor amphitheatre-style seating modelled after New York City's popular Bryant Park and the removal of some of the upper concrete walls to let the sun shine in on the stacks.

Final approval is expected next month from Governing Council.

"It's just fantastic there's going to be improvements to the `Dungeon' – especially since all the increased enrolment we've seen since the double cohort has made it just insane to find seating there during exams," said student Andrea Armborst, 23, president of the Students' Administrative Council, which represents 41,000 students.

"You've got to get there by 6 p.m. or you won't get a seat – and good luck finding a plug for your laptop; the building was designed when laptops didn't even exist," said the political science major, who said some students "reserve" seats by leaving their coats on chairs when they leave to eat or write an exam.

Armborst noted Robarts is the only 24-hour library on campus and is often packed with students sprawled on floors and hallways at the "peak study time – 2 in the morning. So it's going to be great for students to know there will be somewhere to sit after midnight when they need somewhere quiet to work."

MPP John Milloy, Ontario's minister of training, colleges and universities, is expected to announce a $15 million grant this morning for revitalizing and expanding the mammoth triangular structure on St. George St. south of Bloor St. that some have likened to a battleship – or a turkey.

The plan, passed by the board's academic board earlier this month, would improve 1,872 existing study spaces, add 1,588 new study spaces in the existing building and build a new five-storey wing along Huron St. with 1,164 more study spaces.
 
Christopher Hume reports, with a render to boot!

http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/907740--turning-the-page-at-robarts-library

795c1a8247b693ac053f314e1298.jpeg


From that render, I can't convincingly say it adds (or detracts) from the Ministry of Truth. Seems lacking and bland. Indeed, it reminds me of a more airy version of the hideous Rotman building across the street. Of course, the inside of the building will likely benefit the most from the revitalization.
 
So this is in addition to the more minor changes being done to the formerly open connecting spaces between the main building and its two smaller companion buildings? That work seems to have progressed quite far, and is a consistent and respectful addition to the building. By contrast, the addition in the render looks like a tacked-on afterthought, without any real relation to the architecture to which it is attached.

I can understand that some folks don't like Robarts, and I must admit my feelings about it are not entirely free of ambivalence. But this addition seems profoundly misguided -- it doesn't flow with the architecture, or offer some contrasting or complementary counterpoint to it, but just ignores it entirely. Instead of a monument to Brutalism, we get a monument to Brutalism with a tacked on bit on the side, and that is no improvement.
 
Tulse said:
So this is in addition to the more minor changes being done to the formerly open connecting spaces between the main building and its two smaller companion buildings? That work seems to have progressed quite far, and is a consistent and respectful addition to the building.
Click to expand...

The new staircases and glassed in atriums were part of the original Robarts design but were cut from the original construction due to budget constraints, so it makes sense that those look like very natural changes.
 
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